As Year 12 students get ready to begin week two of their 2024 HSC Exams with a focus on mathematics today, the Lismore App talks to Jo Loiterton from the Living School about dropping the HSC in 2025 and introducing the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Program.

This shift away from the High School Certificate, which is the standard level of attainment in NSW, may appear controversial to some. This story explains why founder John Stewart and Director of the Academy Jo Loiterton have taken their education program in a new direction.

Jo is also called the IB Deployment Coordinator, meaning she is in charge of implementing the IB Diploma Program at the Living School. She has spent the last 20 years at various international schools throughout Europe and Asia exposed to the IB Diploma Program.

"My story is that my husband and I went overseas. We were planning to go for two years for a little taste. We wanted to live in a country rather than just go and visit. We actually started in the UK at an international school there, then moved to China, where we lived in Beijing, and then moved to Indonesia and lived in Jakarta. Then I got headhunted out of there to Warsaw in Poland, and then we moved back to Asia, to Laos and lived in Vientiane. From there, it was Penang in Malaysia, a place in the middle of nowhere in Norway and then back to the UK.

"It became quite the Odyssey. I think we would have probably come home from Malaysia, but Covid kind of got in the way. Australia shut its borders. It wasn't easy to get home, so we stayed overseas and worked."

The schools Jo worked in were international schools, which meant students could have 30 to 40 different nationalities.

"A lot of them are expats, but the impact of being in with each other tends to broaden their horizons. But even here, we've got kids who are signing up for the diploma next year because they've already got their eyes on studying elsewhere. I think because their world is so internet-driven, that concept of where you can go and what you can do is fundamentally different to those of us who are a little bit or quite a bit older than them. They do view the world as a possibility."

Apart from global opportunities for its students, Jo felt there is a fairly strong sense of dissatisfaction with the High School Certificate.

"Perhaps it's seen to be a little closed and still quite traditional," Jo explained.

"The IB Diploma is a much more outward-facing sort of qualification to do in Grades 11 and 12. It's in 102 countries, over 8,000 schools do it, and it's an internationally recognised qualification. It has some similarities with the HSC in that you're still doing six subjects, but there are other aspects to it that make it more globally focused, I suppose.

"The curriculum for subjects has to always have components of internationalism, or what they call international mindedness. So, for example, in English, there's a requirement for our English teachers to make sure they're drawing from authors all over the world so that the texts that they're doing represent a range of cultures and a range of ways of thinking.

"I think this is really what's at the heart of the IB Diploma. We try to graduate kids that are critical thinkers and globally minded, and we still want to pay attention to our local context, our Indigenous culture, our Australian heritage, but we want to do that in the context of it's a big world out there, and it's a very interconnected world these days. The kids have to have some understanding and connection with that, so that's possibly the biggest difference between the IB and the HSC.

"There are some structural differences in how we assess. There are exams for most subjects in the IB, but the difference is there are also internally assessed components that you do over the two years. They're called IAs, internal assessments, so each subject has something different.

"For example, I teach psychology, so the kids have to conduct a psychology experiment at some point, and that contributes to their final grade. So, there are components within the two years that get assessed and go towards their final grade, as well as some external exams at the end.

"I watch the kids at the HSC; they're big, long, one-shot-only exams. IB tends to break them up, so you've got two or three. My kids will have two or three exams in psychology, shorter and sharper. Kids can have a bad day and turn up the next day to the next part of the exam and do really well. So there are opportunities to rescue it.

"The IB also has a philosophy that if you don't like your results this time around in six times six months time, you can sit your exams again or parts of exams again to improve your grade. We recognise, I think all good educators recognise, that learning for young people clicks in it at different points for them, so you want to give them the best opportunity to demonstrate their learning."

From those results, the scores on the subject then get adjusted to reflect the latest test marks. Of course, there is a chance the score could go down as well. Jo explained that students will usually select one or two areas of a course and focus their study in that area, and then sit those parts of the exam again to improve it six months later.

The IB has six (6) groups for students to choose from if they were to sit their full IB Dilpoma.

"The first group is English, and we offer two subjects there, Language and Literature, and literature and performance. You have to take a language. So, our kids will be learning Spanish.

"They have to do a math, they have to do a science, which we have four on offer for next year. They have to do an individuals and society; my psychology fits there, global politics lives there, history lives there, business lives there.

"Then group six is the arts. So we have visual arts, music and theatre. And for the kids who really aren't that way inclined, but the Living School kids tend to be inclined towards the arts, you can choose not to take an art and take a second science or a second individuals and societies.

"That's the full IB Diploma. That's the internationally recognised package, and then we have what's called the core that goes with it. Those are three elements: theory of knowledge, which is a subject about exploring. How you know what you know. And I think in the world of artificial intelligence and social media, that's even more important. So, it's encouraging kids to think critically about sources of knowledge and how to determine authenticity, but also to understand that you can look at something from a scientific perspective, or from a mathematical perspective or from the historical perspective, and those lenses will change your understanding.

"So there's a there's quite a lot of exploration of the nature of knowledge and how we relate to it in the theory of knowledge.

"Kids who do the full IB Diploma also write a 4000-word essay, which sounds terrifying to people. It literally is the same as a university-level thesis. They choose a topic out of a subject that they're passionate or interested in and really explore that in depth. My experience is that kids actually end up finding it hard to fit it all into the 4000 words. They have to cut things. Adults are always terrified of the 4000 words. The kids are like, can I have a few more words so I can just say what I need to say?

So that's a really good opportunity for them to experience that sort of university level type writing and exploration. They get a lot of support from teachers, of course. They're not ready for it on their own.

"The third part of what we call the core is CAS; creativity, activity and service. And really, that's about ensuring that kids stay balanced. When kids get to the HSC level, they drop their sports; they drop their passions, and they retreat. The IB says you shouldn't. You should stay engaged in your sports. You should continue to be creative. And probably the biggest message that the IB pushes out in that respect is that you need the experience of giving to others through service. It's great for others, but it's also incredibly regenerative for yourself and your sense of self-worth.

"So, kids can choose to do all that package, which comes very neatly wrapped in that circle. But they can also choose to do what we call IB Courses, which is picking and choosing parts of this rather than the whole package."

(The IB Diploma circle Jo refers to above)

Jo says the IB Diploma will pretty much get you into any university in the world. It is one of the most widely recognised qualifications globally. The Living School's aim is to package it in the right way for each particular student and their goals.

"So, for example, I have a young person who wants to study natural medicine and naturopathy. She's not 100% sure yet what she wants to do. She doesn't want to do the full diploma, but what we need to do is make sure she does the right courses that prepare her for that pathway.

It is worth noting that every university in Australia will accept an IB Diploma. Jo explained that a student's diploma score out of 45 will then be converted to an ATAR for Australian universities. The Living School also has an agreement with Southern Cross University that if a Year 12 student does an additional course put on by SCU, they will get direct entry.

Another HSC/IB Diploma difference is the way of teaching.

"It is about big ideas, and it's about skills. It breaks my heart in this day and age when we walk into classes and teachers are still delivering content in an age where Google can do it far better. All the research tells us that 21st-century employers are looking for people with a strong sense of empathy, strong critical thinking skills, strong communication skills, and an element of creativity.

"I think if you were to ask me the question about why the IB and not the HSC, I think pretty much those are the pieces that are currently missing from the HSC. I'm not going to tell you what to think. I'm not even going to tell you how to think. I'm going to teach you how to manage information, how to think critically about it, how to evaluate it, and how to communicate it. And those are the skills that push young people to the fore in interviews.

If you're looking to employ someone, you want someone who can stand on, and think on, their feet and communicate their thinking. An awful lot of the teaching and learning with the IB pushes kids to do that.

"They also, generally, walk into a university situation feeling very comfortable. I've been pushing kids into university for 20 years now from the IB Diploma. Most of them say that the first year of university is very easy because they've learned the skills to get there. And just generally speaking, my kids who go to direct employment from the diploma don't have the trouble finding a job because they've got those skills that people are looking for."

The Living School aims to have three campuses in Lismore. The junior grades at the current Conway Street site. The middle years will attend the Woodlark Street campus (if approved by Lismore City Council), and the older students will attend the newly built Southern Cross University campus in 2025.

You can find more information on the Living School website.