IB Results Day 2023: Which is the best IB school in the UAE? Why the IBO doesn’t want you to find out

It’s IB results week 2023, and as those nail-biting numbers come rolling out, it’s only natural that students and their parents will be tempted to compare their own grades and overall school performance with that of others.

We see it time and time again; parents want to know, “which is the ‘best’ IB school in the UAE?”. By which they usually mean “which IB school in the UAE gets the highest IBDP or IBCP exam results overall?”

But, try as you might, you won’t find any official league tables list provided by the International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO) – the Switzerland-based headquartered nonprofit foundation that provides the content and authorisation for the four different IB-curriculum programmes to schools around the world (the four programmes are the Primary Years Programme or PYP, the Middle Years Programme or MYP, the Diploma Programme, or IBDP, and the Careers Programme, or IBCP).

This is not because the IBO doesn’t have these results available, nor because they haven’t thought to publish them in one long list. It’s because the philosophy of the IB itself is against ranking schools in this way. As the IBO website states:

“The IB does not rank IB World Schools, nor do we provide statistics on individual school performance. However, we do publish statistical bulletins for both the Diploma Programme (DP) and the Middle Years Programme (MYP). IB World Schools generally make their own performance available to the public and parents can use these statistical bulletins as a tool to make your own comparison.”

There are a vast number of factors – from cohort size, to breadth of subject choice, to level of inclusion versus academic selectiveness – that can have an impact on a school’s average score and render comparison meaningless.

Simon Herbert, Head of School/ CEO of GEMS International School Al Khail – which is a finalist in the SchoolsCompared Top Schools Awards for ‘Best IB School in the UAE’ – explains:

“The IBO believes that schools should be holistic places, with ambition for all and a sense of progress and achievement for all students.

“If schools are ranked, the obvious question is ‘according to what criteria?’. It is quite possible for parents to look at the ‘average point score’ of each IB Diploma Programme school and make a judgement.

“However, more astute parents will be considering how diverse a school is, whether a school examines and precludes on entry, how much progress students make during their educational journey, where students go next on leaving the school, to what extent students enjoy learning or pursue their interests with curiosity and passion.

“Strong IB schools pride themselves on critical and creative thinking, a ‘learner profile’ of attributes and a set of skills known as ‘approaches to learning’ which include research skills, critical thinking skills, communication skills etc. How would one rank these?

“Rankings are a blunt instrument, and often play into the hands of those who ‘teach to the test’.”

Simon Herbert Head of School/ CEO of GEMS International School Al Khail

This is especially true in the multicultural UAE – where there are 50 officially accredited IB World Schools, but these range from being pure IB curriculum schools, to IB/ UK blended curricula schools, IB/ Indian blended curricula schools and IB/ US blended curricula schools – all of which will have their considerable differences and relative strengths.

Simon O’Connor, Director at Deira International School and Chief Education Officer for Al Futtaim Education Foundation, expands:

“The reality is that any direct comparison between different schools’ exam results is false.

“Take Deira International School (DIS) and Universal American School (UAS) for example – they are both schools owned and operated by the Al Futtaim Education Foundation, they are located only 1KM away from each other, and they both do the IB. And yet we are British where they are American, we have different numbers of students, different pathways available, so to simply compare in rank order is a misleading exercise.

“It’s the progress that students make that is far more important – comparing only on exam results is a false comparison.”

“An extension of this is that parents often like to be able to compare the performance of their own children with the rest of their class based on attainment results alone. But we try and shy away from it, as this is a fake comparison as well. We try to personalise the education as much as possible, and it is far more important to look at how a child has performed in relation to what they are capable of achieving, versus how they rank within the class.

“There has already been a lot of pushback in countries like the UK to exam league tables, because they don’t provide context.

“While we have no problem with declaring what our own school’s results are, it’s very important to see exam results as one component – an important component – but only one part of a much bigger picture.”

Simon O’Connor Director Deira International School and Chief Education Officer for Al Futtaim Education

Why have exam results at all?

The IB’s mission and focus on a holistic education that prepares students to be internationally minded, constructive individuals who positively contribute to the world in the future might not seem to align with the whole concept of assessment – so why have exams at all?

It is the lesser of two evils, says the IBO, although it is all too aware of the many problems involved in distilling the rich tapestry of a student’s IB experience and knowledge into a handful of numbers:

“Consider the knowledge, skills and experience that go to make up an excellent chef.

“The knowledge —of ingredients and flavour combinations that will make up a perfectly balanced dish.

“The skills— in selecting and preparing ingredients, of cooking on the hob or in the oven, of presentation.

“And the experience—of using technique to achieve perfection, of judgment to know when something is perfectly cooked, of presenting a combination of ingredients and dishes to achieve sublime satisfaction at the table.

“Now reduce all of that complexity into a single grade out of 7 to decide who the best chef is. The result is almost meaningless. Does it help if we increase the scale to 100, or even 1,000, grades? The answer is likely to be that it doesn’t help; there may be more scope to differentiate but the fundamental issue of trying to compare different skill sets does not go away.

“This is exactly the issue faced within assessment; how to represent the complexity of a learner’s knowledge, understanding and ability to synthesize into a single outcome.

“Even if we could precisely capture all the information about the candidate it would still not mean that we could give them a grade that perfectly reflects their talents.”

So why not do away with grades all together and simply gives a customised description of a student’s performance?

The problem with the prospect of scrapping assessment all together is that there is still a need for universities and employers to make decisions and comparisons between candidates and, if assessment results are not available, then they are likely to use other, less well designed and understood ways of making these decisions, states the IBO:

“If selection is going to take place, then the IB has a responsibility to support its students by making it as fair and meaningful a selection decision as possible.

“If we only provide descriptive accounts of students to the receiving institutions, then they will need to find some way of comparing which will almost certainly be less reliable and comparable than that offered by grading examination outcomes.

“Consider, for example, the validity of a short interview with a tutor and all the factors that could influence the outcome which should not be the basis of selection

“This is not to suggest that summative assessments are a perfect, or even a particularly good way of making such selection, but they are fairer than the alternatives, and most importantly the IB is constantly striving to make them as fair, meaningful and reliable a method as possible.”

You are more than your results

So, as you reflect on the outcome of IB results day 2023, remember: even the IB itself warns you to approach the grades released for the IBDP and IBCP this week with caution.

Simon O’Connor, of Deira International School, says:

“All good schools recognise that education is so much more than examinations,

“Qualifications are a passport to display for the future – but you only have to see the increasing no of employers who are rejecting university qualifications as a prerequisite to see that exams are not the be all and end all.”

Simon Herbert, of GEMS International School Al Khail, adds:

“As a father of three, and the knowledge that our children progress at different rates, at different times, and with different levels of maturity, I am certainly in agreement with the statement ‘You are more than your exam results’.

“I align with the IB’s philosophy that learning is for life and I admire anyone who has continued to learn, and to fail and bounce back, through their lives.

“Exams are one ‘dip-in’ moment, even if the content covers a couple of years of a young person’s life.

“Exams are important, of course, as a gateway to other opportunities. However, with the increase in micro-credentials, diverse pathways, many types of adult education, apprenticeships and growth mindsets, we can say that exam results are only one marker.

“Judging a young mind only by exam results makes for a stressful academic pathway and one which does not paint the whole, holistic, picture.

“Just looking at some of the greatest entrepreneurs and business people, we can often see that so many have not excelled in school, but have been late developers.

“I am reminded of Frank Bruni’s excellent book, ‘Where you go is not who you will be’, which also lays bare the myth that one’s university destination is the ultimate determining factor on one’s future. Not so – we are learners for life, and having the right mindset to keep learning is the key.”

Whatever you found when you clicked open that folder or opened that envelope this week, and whether the grade is everything you hoped for, or if it falls short of your expectations, know this:

You are so, so much more than a number on a page.

Stay tuned to SchoolsCompared.com for live coverage of UAE school IB results this IB Results Day 2023.