<p>I had posted sometime earlier about my son who is in grade 7 going to grade 8 in a well-known school in Bangalore and I received great advice from anialways and a few others. I hope she is still here to answer and I hope others will help..</p>
<p>2013 was tumultuous for us. My son was diagnosed with both learning disability and ADD. As we all know how tough the competition in India is, this also puts him at a handicap as far as getting into competitive colleges in India goes. A number of counselors suggested that we shift to CBSE as the ICSE workload is not conducive for those with learning disabilities. However this is a difficult decision for us as our child is shy and all the friends he has made are those from school over the years.</p>
<p>However my son is a US citizen and even though he is too young, he likes the idea of going to the US for studies. So rather than jump from one frying pan (ICSE) to another (CBSE), I recently awoke to the fact that perhaps we can send him to an international school perhaps with IgCSE up till grade 10 and IB for 11/12. I have looked at the papers for IgCSE and it doesn't seem to require as much rote learning, so I think this may be a good fit. </p>
<p>Could parents or students voice your opinions? I really do not want to mess up my son's life. Thanks!</p>
<p>AS a parent of a child who has had an exposure to both CBSE and IB, I am going to say go the IGSCE and IB route. </p>
<p>Specifically the rote learning style which my D absolutely loathed till the time she finished her Class 10 with CBSE. She did manage a decent grade of 9.1, but it was sheer agony for her as well as us. Her learning style is to ask questions. And CBSE discouraged that. Primarily because they think it is a waste of time when all one should focus on is finishing the syllabus and learning the key words for every answer. Ah…difficult for someone who is inquisitive by nature and who uses both sides of their brain. Not a genius, but a fairly well rounded kid. Could manage an 8.5 with little effort and to go beyond that magical 9.0 required a little more effort than her procrastination and poor time management skills allowed her to.</p>
<p>But the switch to IB just changed her personality. Suddenly the kid who was being penalised and reprimanded for asking questions and disturbing the class was being appreciated. The teachers were making sure to mention it in their feedback as one her greatest strengths and it reflected not only her inquisitive nature but also the ability to formulate the question and articulate it well. Which in turn helped other students in class who found that as a challenge or were to shy to do. And I never in my wildest dream could have imagined that one day I would have a teacher tell me how her thinking is different from others AND that is good thing. </p>
<p>The other great IB attribute was the chilled out teachers, that in turn made for chilled out students. The teachers were extremely approachable, easy to talk to and focussed on the child’s strengths.</p>
<p>Another plus was Students in the IB program are not marked on a 0 - 100% scale. Rather they are marked using IB grading criteria, which runs from 1-7. That again takes off a lot of pressure.</p>
<p>Another discovery for as parents was that she did better in smaller groups rather than in large classes.</p>
<p>That also gave her opportunities to participate and show off her skills. The MUN activity that she began in class 8 and was a struggle to get nominated for an Inter school conference due to biases and favoritism in CBSE, suddenly she was asked to represent her school in International Conferences both here in India and outside.</p>
<p>And the presentations, team projects, research, writing papers…I can go on and on.</p>
<p>To put it simply, IB is a learner’s medium and CBSE is a teacher’s medium. But having said that, I would say IB is not for everybody. But it worked wonderfully for my D.</p>