International Baccalaureate (IB) Program Review

We invited members of the Ancaster and Westdale school communities, along with students and families from the broader HWDSB community, with a vested interest in this program, to share their views.

Background Information

International Baccalaureate (IB) is a Grade 11/12 university preparation program recognized in over 140 countries, including universities in Ontario and Canada. Students concurrently study up to six challenging subjects that instill a global perspective with cross-cultural understanding.

IB was introduced to Westdale Secondary School in 2008 and then opened in Glendale and Ancaster in 2013. The Glendale program closed in 2018 due to low enrolment and Ancaster's numbers have steadily declined over the years with current enrolment of 14 students in Grade 11, and 16 students in Grade 12.

You Shared your Thoughts

The Board concern is that with a low enrolment, we cannot offer a full slate of courses in the IB program. It also creates problems for class sizes throughout the school. There is a limited number of teachers in a school based on funding for number of students enrolled. When some classes are extremely small, it means that other classes (outside of the IB program) have to be very large to ensure that the school meets the educational needs of all students with the number of teachers available for that school.

The feedback we heard was mostly in support of keeping the Ancaster program open.

This review of the IB program determined that the Ancaster site will remain open and will not migrate to Westdale as the only site. To learn more about the International Baccalaureate Program see the links in the column to the right.

Where We are Now

Further thinking and a future wider review of the Secondary Program Strategy will be ongoing in the coming years. To see the full report, open "IB Report to Board of Trustees 20March2023" in the Important Documents section of this page.