On 1st June 2011, Sekolah Pilar Indonesia became an International Baccalaureate World School authorized to offer the Primary Years Programme. This is the culmination of 5 years of hard work adjusting and developing our pedagogical practices to satisfy the very high standards expected of all IB world schools.
It was with a little bit of nervousness, but also confidence, that we welcomed the two members of the authorization team to our school. They were Ms Mignon Weckert (IB Regional Office) and Ms Rachna Johar (Ghandi Memorial International School, Jakarta).
The team spent an intensive two days visiting classrooms and looking at our documentation. Following the visit on the 12th and 13th May, 2011, we received a congratulatory message from the Director General of the IB in Geneva, Mr Jeffrey Beard, informing us of our success.
Of course, this does not mean that our learning journey is over. International Baccalaureate students, teachers and parents are life-long learners and there is still much to do. Based on the recommendations for improvement from the visiting team, we must submit an “action plan” to the regional office, outlining how we will put these improvements into practice. In May 2015 we will receive another official visit from the IB office to make sure we are still “on track”. In the meantime you will notice small changes to our documentation and improvements in our classroom practices. However, we achieved authorization only by developing our teaching and learning environment in such a way that we are able to successfully implement the Primary Years Programme. Therefore, changes will continue but they will be gradual.
Congratulations are due to parents also, who have supported their children and the programme over the years. Students were particularly commended on their bilingualism and their fluent use of two languages; Indonesian and English. Those parents who encourage their children to develop a strong foundation in their mother tongue (Indonesian) show a very good understanding of how we learn languages. For this, they are to be congratulated also.
Our next major step in the improvement of our education programme, is to become a candidate school for the Middle Years Programme (Grades 7-10) and eventually authorized in this programme as well.
