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Baccalaureate diploma pause devastating - students

Harry Whitehead
BBC News, Guernsey
BBC Two teenage boys looking at the camera, with the Guernsey Sixth Form Centre in the background. The boy on the left, Ben, is a white boy with medium length dark brown hair with a parting down the middle. He is wearing a dark purple V-neck sweater with a white t-shirt underneath. The boy on the right, Shea, is a white boy with shorter, mousey brown hair. He is wearing a khaki green t-shirt.BBC
Ben (L) and Shea (R) were due to get their offer letter for the diploma the day after they were told it had been pulled

Two students, who were supposed to begin their International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) in September, say they are "angry" over the decision to pause the course for the next academic year.

Ben and Shea said they were told about the decision a day before their offers were due to come out.

"I didn't get much time to process what I was doing, it was straight from you're not doing International Baccalaureate, now pick your A-levels," Ben said

The Committee for Education, Sport and Culture said only 14 students had signed up to the diploma for the 2025/2026 academic year and pausing the course would allow teachers to be used more "effectively".

'Unreasonable and devastating'

"I get more angry as I think about it because it seems quite unreasonable and really quite devastating," Shea said.

"It feels a bit like a personal violation letting us know so late, although the actual final choice was made the day we found out, I think education [The Committee for Education, Sport and Culture] could've gone about it in a better way.

"They could've let the school know earlier so that we could have more time to decide what we'll do next."

Ben, who wants to go to Cambridge University, said he could not think of a "single benefit" of pausing the diploma.

He said: "There is no logical pathway that I can go down, from the start of this year when we were given International Baccalaureate as an option and all encouraged to do it, to it being cut off to all of us in such a quick space of time."

A sign which says The Sixth Form Centre at the top, reception with an arrow pointing towards a building in the background and staff parking, with an arrow pointing around the building.
The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme was offered at the Sixth Form Centre

President of the committee, Deputy Andrea Dudley-Owen, said there was not enough uptake for the course to be viable.

"The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme has been and remains a valued part of our Sixth Form Centre's curriculum for some years now.

"However the educational experience of the students, with so few in each class, with the inevitable transfer of some students to other subject areas at the beginning of these courses, would have been suboptimal.

"With this decision to pause the diploma, school leaders can now use staff more effectively to make a wider impact across education."

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