Budapest British International School Receives Full IB Diploma Accreditation

BBIS is delighted to receive official authorisation to operate the IB Diploma and is proud to join the worldwide community of International Baccalaureate World Schools.

The announcement creates the first continuous IB World School for Secondary age students in Budapest.

Students can now begin the IB Middle Years Programme (MYP) and continue their IB learning through to the completion of the Diploma (DP) in the same school.

“Building this continuum is both a ‘significant achievement’ and an ‘achievement of significance’, which has involved the support and dedication from a wide range of people. From the earliest days when BBIS owner Petra Szalai set the ambition to become an IB World School, through the application process and now the final authorisation, a huge amount of work has been undertaken.

DP coordinator Penny Clements, steered BBIS through the development of an exciting and dynamic educational offer for students in their final two years of schooling and received 18 commendations from the IB verification team for the setup of the programme.

This demonstrates not only our commitment to the IB philosophy but also reflects the detailed and comprehensive planning Ms. Clements and her team have put into the process. As you can imagine, we are all delighted”, said BBIS School Principal, Dr. David Porritt.“

We are excited that our first cohort of DP students started in August 2022.”

Achieving IB authorization is an extremely rigorous and lengthy process. Schools must complete two extensive applications during various points in the process, and prepare for an onsite or virtual authorisation visit, similar to an audit, from an IB-certified team.

During the process, schools are responsible for training teachers to understand the program and implement the framework. Typically, the average school takes about three years to become authorised.

Dr. Porritt continued to explain that, “Developing the MYP and now the DP required work to establish the culture of our school community to ensure that BBIS teaching and learning is student centred, collaborative and where there is a clear focus on international-mindedness.

Our teachers and support staff have worked extremely hard to achieve this honour, which will ultimately benefit our students, parents, and the entire BBIS community.”

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