Coordinating the CP
An introduction to the CP Coordinator role
If you are reading this, chances are you are either considering taking on the role of CP coordinator at your school or are new to the role. There could be a chance that you have taken on the role as your school embarks on the road to authorisation; however, there is also a chance that your school has a well-established CP course which you have taken over. Whatever the scenario, here is an overview of key areas so you can familiarise yourself with what lies ahead.
Glance before you scroll
The following are key to starting out with the role of coordination and making it your own.
1. Why the CP? The priority for education in the 21st Century surely is making sure that no student is left behind and creating a CP offer in your school that embraces the individuality of every student will embrace this.
2. What does my role involve? The first stop for a coordinator is a job description and appropriate time release - whether starting out on CP for the first time or taking over the CP coordination from someone else.
3. How will the CP work in my school? You need to contextualise the CP and work out what it will mean in your school. Think about the fixed and flexible components of the CP and consider what you want your Career-related Studies to be.
4. Where do I start with the core? Create or review your PPS course with your school in mind; make it the product of collaboration.
Let's start at the beginning
You may well be familiar with the first diagram here which shows the three key elements of the CP and the basic
requirements, but are you aware of just how flexible this framework is? First a quick recap:
... and just like all IB programmes, all the elements are connected by Approaches to Teaching and Learning, International-mindedness and the Learner Profile.
This is a fixed and flexible framework and, depending on what the school can timetable and offer, programmes can vary from student to student. What is fixed is a career-related element, completion of the core hours and portfolios as well as reflective project, and at least 2 DP subjects at Standard Level. What is flexible is the size of the career-related studies and the DP subjects which can be offered in greater numbers and also at Higher Level.
A CP course that meets the basic requirements, might look like:
A small- to-medium sized CP course might look like:
Larger CP courses might look like the following:
Why is this important?
When you start seeing the sheer diversity in CP courses that schools around the world have been offering, you realise that this is a course that really can be moulded to the student and their interests and skills. This is one of the reasons why there have been such an impressive variety of destinations for CP students globally as well as no 'textbook' CP student. Some focus more on career-related elements whereas others really focus on the academic DP subject areas in depth with a smaller CRS.
Consider the excerpt above from the Unicef, 'The Global Framework of Transferable Skills', 2019. What phrases resonate most with you as a teacher and group of teachers?
The reality of working as a teacher is that the every day workload takes over and we do not often have a chance to remind ourselves of why we do what we do; possibly more importantly, to consider what we think about what we do and where we stand. The late Ken Robinson became synonymous with challenging the established and accepted centuries long habits of global education systems; systems that systemmatically create a hierarchy where academic intelligence in particular trumps any other talents young people might have. This video is from 2010 and may be familiar to you; it is a good idea to revisit it and consider where you stand as a teacher and where your school stands in relation to it creation of a career-related programme. What are your priorities from this?
Creating your role and working towards authorisation
If your school is just embarking on the CP and starting from scratch in all areas of the programme, the role of the coordinator needs to be carefully defined. Existing commitments need to be revised and/or aligned with the new challenges of coordinating the programme. A common word used in the IB world is 'stakeholders' and this is a key area where you can/should play a role in shaping your job description in collaboration with the school. The key area of the Programme Standards and Practices 2020 to consider comes under the area of Environment with particular focus on Leadership and governance (0201). Below is a summary. Whilst the IB acknowledges that a wide variety of contexts can support the implementation of IB programmes there are obligations that the school must fulfil and there are specific requirements in relation to the CP coordinator.
Programme Standards and Practices 2020
Environment: 'Providing essential structures, systems and resources'
Standard: Leadership and governance (0201)
Leadership 2 states that the programme coordinator must have:
1. up to date IB-training
2. a place on the pedagogical leadership team
3. a job description
4. release time
5. support and in a position to facilitate change
Further information:
1. The CP coordinator must have had recent IB recognised professional development whether this be a virtual 3 day workshop or an online course taking place over 4 weeks. This is not merely for increasing understanding of the IB and CP specifically but a chance for the CP coordinator to contextualise what is needed in their particular circumstances. It is also, more importantly, a chance to collaborate and network with fellow CP coordinators around the region; this support system is valued hugely by CP coordinators.
2. Many schools become authorised to offer the CP to add another programme in addition to their offering of the DP. It is absolutely crucial that there is parity between the two programmes even if the CP might have far less students initially taking it. This is one of the reasons why the CP coordinator must be in the position to be a pedagogical leader and affect change. You will find on the pages on this site how Approaches to Learning and the 5 areas of Research, Self-management, Thinking, Social and Communication skills thread their way through quite fluidly throughout the PPS, Reflective project, Service Learning and Language Development elements. The more these links are taken advantage of to make a fully wholistic programme, the more the intentions behind the CP are realised. This embedding and concurrency of learning is very much the mission of the school's journey towards the 5 year evaluation.
3. A job description is a requirement for authorisation but it is also important to have established the parameters of your role in terms of the leadership and wider school structure. What are your responsibilities now and how will these be affected by the CP coordinator role. It might be that your job description acknowledges the role you will have to take in the authorisation process of the CP as well as the role you will take after its launch. Will you be teaching some/all of the core or will you have a team that you oversee?
4. As with any new programme, schools can start out with low projected numbers. The difficulty here lies when this is translated into a CP coordinator not needing much release time for their CP responsibilities specifically. It is important for a school to consider the time it will take to put into practice all the requirements of the CP for authorisation, who will be doing this and what this means for their time allocation. There is also the factor that the CP coordinator will need release time after the launch of the programme too; especially when it comes to exploring the emphasis on collaboration that the IB state as crucial amongst staff to fully integrate the programme (Teacher Support: 0203-03-0141)
5. It is now possibly quite evident why CP coordinators need to be in the position to affect change! If the CP coordinator is not already the DP coordinator, then it is important to consider the placement of both roles in terms of support systems and ability to facilitate school-wide change.
What might be the advantages of the Career-related Programme in your context?
Discuss as a CP team: include all core, career-related and DP teachers (as appropriate).
For a learner ...
What current choice of pathways do your students choose at the age of 18?
What choice of pathways do your students feel able to choose at the age of 18?
How personalised can you make current curriculum for your students?
What do you feel you are not able to provide currently?
If your students could specialise in particular career-related subjects, what might they be? How do you know?
If you had could have more flexibility in your current provision, where would it be?
Which of the DP courses could you provide/you currently provide, might complement a career-related subject best?
What attitudes, values and skills do your students start their sixth form/year 11/12 studies with? What attitudes, values and skills would you like students to leave school with?
As a school ...
How do you provide access to a wide group of students to the IB programme? Could this be wider?
Are you making the most cost effective use of your current IB offering, if you already offer the DP?
How have you establisehd meaningful linkes with employers in your local community? What links could you forge? What might be the benefit of this?
How do you currently balance career-related and academic education in your school?
Other than their academic subjects, what other provision do you provide for students in preparation for future employment, training and study?
Which members of your school community are currently working towards preparing students for future employment, training and study?
How do you currently give students a concept-based curriculum that is student-centred and built through inquiry and collaboration?
Deciding on a Career-related programme
Whether you are deciding on a career-related programme, revising your current offer or considering expanding your choices, the career-related subject need to fulfil a number of criteria from the IB. Their apparent flexibility can be both welcomed by a school but also overwhelming as they try to narrow down what would be right for them. The current criteria stand at:
1. The career-related studies element is offered and awarded by the school and not the IB. It must be assessed and/or validated by a relevant external authority and not the IB. It must also be subject to a valid source of external quality assurance. It is down to the school to choose the CRS that most suits their local environment the needs of their students.
2. It is important that the CRS has a clear career focus. This might seem obvious but this means is that it should clearly prepare students for further or higher education, internship or apprenticeship, or a position in employment/training in a field of interest. Whatever the school chooses, one thing remains the same: it must give students the opportunity to apply concepts and theories in real world scenarios as well as provide them with the opportunity to develop transferable skills in meaningful contexts.
3. The CRS must be part of the student timetable during the whole CP course over a two year period.
4. The CRS and assessment plan must be accredited and/or recognised by at least one of the following:
- a goverment body
- an awarding body
- an appropriate employer organisation or professional body
- an employer or professional organisation
- a further/higher education institution
The Fixed and Flexible nature of The Career-related Programme
Fixed
- The career-related subject/s must be completed
- Students must take at least 2 DP courses at Standard Level achieving at least a level 3 in each.
- Students must complete all aspects of the core and achieve at least a D in their Reflective project
Flexible
- The size and nature of the career-related study taken
- The amount of DP courses studied and whether these are at Standard Level or Higher Level
- How the school designs their PPS, Service Learning and Language Development courses around the IB's aims and learning outcomes.
Possible course combinations
| Small CRS | 2 Standard Level DP courses | The CP Core |
| Small CRS | 3 Standard Level DP Courses | The CP Core |
| Medium CRS | 1 Higher Level DP Course, 2 SL DP courses | The CP Core |
| Medium CRS | 2 HL DP courses, 1 SL DP Course | The CP Core |
| Large CRS | 2 HL DP courses | The CP Core |
| Large CRS | 3 HL DP courses | The CP Core |
Map out your students' needs - past, present and future
Discuss as a CP team:
- The skills your students will have coming into the course, the skills they will need throughout the course and where there are transferable skills across their subjects.
- What would you like them to develop in terms of Personal Development, Intercultural Understanding, Effective Communication, Thinking Processes and Applied Ethics?
- Could you take a Project-based learning approach to the PPS course as well or alternatively?
As part of the authorisation process, training in Personal and Professional Skills is mandatory. The school is expected to contextualise the PPS course rather than follow, word for word, the PPS guide from the IB. It is brimming full of suggestions to set you in the right direction however. After any training - for PPS, the career-related subject, DP courses - it is a really good idea to get staff together to discuss the skills that their students will have at the start of their course as well as the skills they will need to develop throughout. Furthermore, where are the transferable skills? Identify this and you have the start of excellent curriculum mapping and the ideal state where concurrency of learning is being facilitated for the student. The PPS course can be where the acquistion of skills can become explicit - students will not just be aware that they have a toolbox, they will know specifically which skill they need for a specific task.
Personal and Professional Skills resources
The following pages have been created to develop skills specifically with students across the Approaches to Learning and the PPS themes of Personal Development, Intercultural Understanding, Effective Communication, Thinking Processes and Applied Ethics.
Exercises in Empathy
Understanding empathy can be tricky - least of all differentiating it from sympathy. Through the work of neuro psychologists and academics, we explore its definition and real world application. Students...
Responding to change
The ongoing global pandemic has brought to the forefront of young people's minds that change on a mass scale can happen seemingly overnight. What can we learn from ways 'leaders' have responded locally,...
Career skill: Interviews
The notion of an interview can be a scary prospect because it symbolises a step into the unknown and very much about risk-taking. At the heart of any interview scenario is being able to answer and ask...
Understanding Truth
Here, we start to chip away at the idea of truth and how finding it in today's world demands highly developed critical thinking tools. Whilst the intention is to provide sources to prompt inquiry from...
Starting discussions and debates
A key way to develop confidence in personal and professional skills and foster curiosity is through continuous debate and discussion about the world around us. A PPS teacher's main hurdle is keeping resources...
Making the reflective project manageable
As you plan for the core, it's good to consider the approach you will take with a 50 hour independent project as an educator. Every school does this differently in the way they staff the supervision and coordination. Before you get in to exploring the criteria and what the reflective project is really about, see it as going hand in hand with PPS where a lot of the skills are prepared and developed. Consider the characteristics of a long-term project and what students find difficult.
The word 'independent' can be distracting as it might suggest there is less you can do to support the process. However, talk to any CP educator - experienced or going through with their first cohort - and there are common threads of where the pitfalls lie when managing the reflective project (or any extended project for that matter). How students overcome that fatigue they can feel after the initial enthusiasm invariably wanes, and push through to a state of new learning and growth, really defines the success of their learning journey in the reflective project. A good lifeskill perhaps to know that this is what can happen with any work or long term project and the highs and lows that can ensue). Two key areas help you right from the start:
Anticipate and think ahead
When you come to know the criteria, you will notice in criterion E in particular that you get rewarded for reflecting on setbacks as well as successes throughout the process. The key to students coping when their project hits brick walls or stumbling blocks, is that they understand the process, they have anticipated this can happen and they really understand the resources they have at their disposal; this can be a bank of questions, thinking routine tools and supervisory support they can draw upon to help them move on. This approach encourages a growth mindset and a problem-solving spirit.
Scaffold, scaffold, scaffold
We are not talking about structuring the students' paragraphs for them and holding their hand every step of the way. However, rather than a 9-12 month project stretching out dauntingly before them, consider not just essential mini-deadlines and reflection due dates but perhaps a thematic approach to the project to make it manageable. For example, say you are a school, who has a process that runs over three terms from January to October/November, consider breaking it down into tranches to:
Term 1, Research, questioning and building knowledge
Term 2, Creating a draft reflective project
Term 3 (after a good long break) Understanding impact and finding solutions; the final draft.
This way, students are building through the stages of the reflective project process, they can know where they are heading but only concentrate on the stage that they are at right now. The final stage needs fresh energy as this is the area where the real meaning of the reflective project lies and, let's be honest, the most marks for critical thinking; can students assess the 'so what?' and the 'what next?' of their ethical dilemma?