The school we build together

This year, in time for the IB Global Conference in Denver, the IB was able to produce a short version of a video featuring Dobbs Ferry High School, in New York. This school has been lead by Dr. John Falino since 2011. When John first arrived at the school, the IB Diploma Programme was serving only a select group of students. He asked the community, what is it that we value in terms of the learning opportunities we provide for students. Having done that, the recognized that the IB provided the closest alignment to their values. And from that time, they have advanced access for every student in the school.

This year’s IB Global Conference theme is “Shared learning. Shared Futures.” and Dobbs Ferry High School is an inspiring example of this. When I first started working at the IB, I saw the name of this school and “IB for all"“ integrated into conference breakout session proposals, year after year. The team came to conference to share their learning, to our benefit. Many more schools do this. It is one of the most remarkable things about the IB community. Not only do schools share their practice as thought leaders do at education conferences all over the world, they are pointing others in the IB’s global education system to elements of the learning design that may have been overlooked. They challenge thinking about what is possible and they offer guidance to advance implementation of a framework that is also shared. The common values, approaches, and the language we use to identify and address challenges as well as dive deeper into our opportunities is a strength.

WELCOME TO ANOTHER YEAR OF ADVANCING ACCESS TO ONE OF THE WORLDS MOST POWERFUL LEARNING CENTERED EDUCATION MODELS! Let’s build, together!

Here is a sneak peak at a soon to be published School Success Story titled, “How a shared vision transformed a whole school to improve results for every student”, to accompany the following video.