How Can The IB Learner Profile Characteristics Be Developed Across A School?

By Paul Wood

I mentioned during INSET that, as a whole, WA didn't look or feel to me like an IB school during the pandemic-constrained months from January to July. Our excellent IB DP and CP programmes have, in many ways, continued to exemplify what is great about the IB, even during lockdowns and on-site constraints. However, those sixth form programmes occupy a relatively small physical space at WA and involve only ~13% of our students. So I'm wondering about the extent to which the IB influences our students' experiences in Y7-11 and that's something for us all to think about and discuss in the coming months. I appreciate Holly inviting me to expand on that observation via this blog post about my previous experiences with the IB Learner Profile. I also mentioned during that same INSET talk that I do understand that what I saw and felt last year was constrained by COVID and I want to emphasise that again here. Indeed, it’s been fascinating and enjoyable these past two weeks to see the variations that are now emerging in the students’ classroom experiences and I certainly believe I’m seeing much more of the "real" WA. As you hopefully all know, the IB learner profile (LP) comprises ten characteristics that will be familiar to, and demonstrated by, all students who experience IB programmes:

• Inquirers
• Knowledgeable
• Thinkers
• Communicators
• Principled
• Open-minded
• Caring
• Risk-takers
• Balanced
• Reflective
  

As with any other desired learning outcomes of a school, it is not desirable (or possible!) for every teacher to aim to develop all of these characteristics in every lesson! Rather, IB schools should be able to point to purposeful opportunities - in lessons and in extra-curricular activities - via which students can increase their understanding and demonstration of the LP over the course of their school careers, so that by the time the students leave the school at Y11 or Y13, they are able to speak reflectively about each of the characteristics in a sincere manner. Lessons involve reference to, and discussion of, the LP terms as an introduction to related learning activities. There is little value in the LP existing only as a poster on a classroom wall. And there is little value in a teacher discussing with students what it means to be "risk taker" at school, if students are never given opportunities to take intellectual and academic risks, in a supportive environment that recognises "praise-worthy failure". In my experience, schools achieve purposeful development of the LP via skilful and coordinated cross-curricular and extra-curricular planning. I've seen that to be the case no matter what the pre-CP/DP academic programme. In other words, the LP can be woven into the planning of KS3/KS4, of IB Middle Years Programme, and of American standards-based curricula. However, without that coordinated, scaffolded curriculum planning, the LP will develop in ad hoc, coincidental ways at best. Where I've seen this Y7-11 planning work best (including effective alignment with sixth form curricula), the academic curriculum is planned in teams, both horizontal and vertical, working under the guidance of a single schoolwide curriculum coordinator who ensures everyone is "rowing in the same direction". Those teams meet before, during, and after discrete periods of learning ("units" or whatever they might be called). If the planning and teaching are well-coordinated, any student could move seamlessly from one class of a course to another, without noticing a difference in outcomes. This is not to suggest that all students should do the same activities at the same time with the different teachers of the course. Rather, the teachers agree on those outcomes and the related common assessment tasks, and then the teachers help every student demonstrate their learning in the common assessment task, even if they complete different activities along the way. That's the essence of individualised learning and it requires skilful classroom facilitation to complement the coordinated curriculum planning. (And I'll emphasise that it does not need to happen in every lesson every day - it needs to be an appropriate part of a thoughtfully coordinated curriculum). In summary, I've seen the LP characteristics best developed in Y7-11 in schools that have (i) coordinated, schoolwide curriculum planning and review, (ii) purposeful but authentic reference to the LP characteristics sprinkled throughout that curriculum so that they all received attention over the course of the five or seven years, and (iii) classroom teaching that, over time, helps students understand and demonstrate the LP characteristics by connecting them to subject area learning.