Our Talented IB Teachers
Our highly qualified team of IB teachers are committed to educating young people to be proactive, sensitive, and well balanced. They guide our students to develop a thirst for knowledge throughout their lives and a willingness to play a positive role within the community, whether in Peru or in any other part of the world.
Learning Areas
The Diploma Programme is a demanding, two-year pre-university programme for young students between the ages of 16 and 19. The syllabus encompasses a broad range of study areas and aspires to educate students who are informed and have an inquisitive spirit, as well as being supportive and sensitive to the needs of others. The IB gives special importance to helping young people develop an intercultural understanding and an open mind, as well as attitudes that are necessary to respect and assess different points of view.
SIX ACADEMIC AREAS
The programme is based on six academic areas structured around a core. This structure encourages the simultaneous study of a broad range of academic areas.
Language A: Literature | Group 1
The IB policy encourages students to maintain strong links with their own language and culture. The acquisition of excellent oral and written skills, and the respect for literary heritage in the student’s mother tongue are complemented with an international perspective through the analysis of world literature. The course is based on the notion that literature represents our perceptions and experiences of the world, stimulating independent, original, critical, and clear thinking alongside respect for creativity.
English Language B (HL) | Group 2
Language B is a language acquisition course for students to gain the necessary skills and intercultural understanding to communicate successfully in an environment where the studied language is spoken. This process encourages the learner to go beyond the confines of the classroom, expanding their awareness of the world and fostering their respect for cultural diversity.
History | Group 3
History is an exploratory subject that fosters our students’ sense of inquiry. It’s also an interpretive discipline, allowing for engagement with multiple perspectives and opinions. Studying history develops our students’ understanding of the past, which leads to a deeper understanding of the nature of humans and of the world today.
The Diploma Programme (DP) history course is a world history course based on a comparative, multi-perspectival approach to history and is focused around key historical concepts such as change, causation, and significance. It involves the study of a variety of types of history – including political, economic, social, and cultural – encouraging students to think historically. In this way, the course involves a challenging and demanding critical exploration of the past.
History is available at both Standard Level (SL) and Higher Level (HL).
Experimental Sciences | Group 4
At CPB, Group 4, or the experimental sciences, include Biology, Physics, and Environmental Systems courses.
Studying science challenges our students, as they must solve problems with their creativity and imagination. Through the study of science, our students become aware of the way in which scientists work and communicate with each other. Understanding science entails managing theory, laws, hypotheses, and concepts that can always be improved through rigorous experimentation and validation.
Our students develop skills in scientific experimentation and research, including the use of current technologies. They also become aware of the need to collaborate and communicate effectively in scientific activities.
Mathematics | Group 5
Due to our students’ diverse needs, aspirations, interests, and skills, there are two mathematics courses: ‘Analysis and Focus’ and ‘Applications and Interpretation’.The IB Diploma’s mathematics courses’ general objectives include:
• Developing our students’ curiosity for mathematics, enjoying it, and appreciating its elegance and possibilities
• Developing an understanding of the concepts, principles, and nature of mathematics
• Developing logical and creative thinking, as well as patience and constancy in problem solving
• Employing and perfecting abstraction and generalisation skills
ITGS | Group 6
The objective of the ITGS course is to study individuals and societies. The framework encourages students to make informed decisions and judgements about the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in society. Students learn to manage the implicit codes in HTML language to create webpages while applying their research and critical thinking skills.
Chemistry | Group 6
The IB chemistry course provides us with the necessary knowledge to understand and explain what’s happening in our environment and within ourselves. Given that chemistry focuses on matter and its transformations, this branch of science has contributed to humanity’s improvement of the quality of life.
The course has practical and theoretical components, so students develop a series of skills, such as observation, planning, analysis, and creativity skills. The study of chemistry is important for students who wish to pursue a career in medicine, engineering, nutrition, geology, biology, and veterinary medicine, among others.
Business and Management | Group 6
This course provides students with an understanding of the main business areas and how they operate individually and together, as well as businesses theories and concepts that assist organizations in their decision-making processes. Students learn about the different functions of a business and the roles involved within them, ensuring our students are aware of different career paths.
The course features real-life businesses – ranging from huge multinationals to small local start-ups – as examples to support the course content. The course reinforces this with a range of multimedia resources that help our students understand why some companies excel and others fail.
Students learn new analytical tools that enable them to evaluate real-life situations facing businesses. They learn how to make rational business decisions by evaluating information from different stakeholder groups to recommend a course of action to an organization.
Students conduct research into various businesses and the threats they face, broadening their understanding of related issues in local and international news. Students learn how to evaluate business decisions and recommend action using financial information as well as qualitative information.
The Arts | Group 6
The IB Visual Arts course is student-centred, placing students’ explorations at the heart of a holistic learning experience. It encourages them to investigate – not only using traditional academic methods, but also through experimentation and achieving different levels of understanding through the experiences that become part of them.
The course develops social, research, thinking, communication, and self-management skills. Students choose a motivating theme or centre from which they start to produce their work. Through this process, they learn the aspects relevant to the assignment, which include formal and technical aspects.
IB CORE COMPONENTS
1. CAS
The CAS Programme (Creativity, Activity, and Service) is a learning system that allows our IB students to strengthen their personal and interpersonal development through first-hand experiences of service.
Over the IB’s two-year period, students develop a minimum of two projects, which comply with three pillars:
• Creativity: Exploration and broadening of ideas that lead to a product that’s original, authentic, and demonstrates organisation and planning.
• Activity: Physical effort that contributes to a healthy style of life, both within and outside the educational institution.
• Service: A collaborative and reciprocal commitment with a community in response to an authentic need.
2. TOK
‘Theory of Knowledge’ (TOK) plays a special role in the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme (DP), by challenging students to reflect on the nature of knowledge, and on how we know what we claim to know. It’s one of the components of the DP core and is mandatory for all students. The TOK requirement is central to the educational philosophy of the Diploma Programme.
TOK makes our students aware of the interpretative nature of knowledge, including personal ideological biases – whether these biases are retained, revised, or rejected.
It offers students and their teachers the opportunity to:
• Reflect critically on diverse ways of knowing and on areas of knowledge
• Consider the role and nature of knowledge in their own culture, in the cultures of others, and in the wider world
• Be aware of themselves as thinkers, encouraging them to become more acquainted with the complexity of knowledge
• Recognize the need to act responsibly in an increasingly interconnected but uncertain world
3. The Essay
The Essay is a research project students undertake independently and constitutes one of the requirements to obtain the IB Diploma. Students demonstrate their passion, enthusiasm, and intellect in a subject of their preference.
It’s a learning experience that leads to the development of skills such as:
• Research and Communication (including the use of sources and the concept of academic honesty)
• Critical Thinking
• Self-management (i.e., meeting established deadlines, and ability to reflect)
It involves a serious personal commitment to produce a 4,000-word assignment, supervised by a tutor, with an average of 40 hours spent outside of class.
Workshops
During the IB years at Colegio Peruano Británico, we also offer workshops on contemporary dance, music, photography, drawing, and mixed media.
