Infoa IB:stä - The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme

The nature of the IB Diploma Programme

The In­ter­na­tional Bac­calau­re­ate Diploma Pro­gramme is a rig­or­ous pre-uni­ver­sity pro­gramme for stu­dents aged be­tween 16 and 19. It is recog­nised by uni­ver­si­ties world­wide. The pro­gramme is ad­min­is­tered by the IB, the In­ter­na­tional Bac­calau­re­ate, which was es­tab­lished in the 1960s, hav­ing its present head­quar­ters in The Hague. Apart from high aca­demic stan­dard and per­sonal in­tel­lec­tual rigour, a lot of at­ten­tion is paid to the ideals of world cit­i­zen­ship and in­ter­na­tional un­der­stand­ing. In each IB school there is an IB Fac­ulty, which con­sists of the Diploma Pro­gramme Co­or­di­na­tor and teach­ers re­spon­si­ble for ful­fill­ing the re­quire­ments within the IB Diploma Pro­gramme.

The IB studies at Joensuun lyseon lukio

At Joen­suun ly­seon Lukio, the IB Diploma Pro­gramme con­sists of three aca­demic years: the prepara­tory or Pre DP year (Class 1ib), the first IB year (Class 2ib) and the sec­ond IB year (Class 3ib). Class 1ib mainly com­prises stud­ies which are in ac­cor­dance with the Finnish na­tional pro­gramme, with the dis­tinc­tion that most com­pul­sory cour­ses are taught in Eng­lish. Af­ter suc­cess­fully com­plet­ing the prepara­tory year (1ib) the stu­dent is then ac­cepted to the IB Pro­gramme. If the 1ib re­quire­ments have not been suc­cess­fully com­pleted, the stu­dent need to dis­cuss with IB co­or­di­na­tor and guid­ance coun­cel­lor about the pos­si­bil­ity to con­tinue stud­ies.

Dur­ing their Pre DP year the stu­dents choose the sub­jects they want to study in the IB Pro­gramme from the se­lec­tion of cour­ses in the IB cur­ricu­lum of the school. The num­ber of sub­jects is nor­mally six, in ad­di­tion to which the stu­dents par­tic­i­pate in the CAS pro­gramme (Cre­ativ­ity, Ac­tiv­ity, Ser­vice, ad­min­is­tered by the CAS co­or­di­na­tor), take a course in the The­ory of Knowl­edge (TOK) and com­pile an Ex­tended Es­say of some 4000 words in one of the sub­jects taught in the IB Diploma Pro­gramme at the school.

The 1ib stu­dents plan their own in­di­vid­ual study pro­grammes by choos­ing the cour­ses from the se­lec­tion of cour­ses the school of­fers. There is a cer­tain num­ber of cour­ses which are com­pul­sory for all stu­dents. Non-Finnish stu­dents are not re­quired to study Finnish or Swedish. In ad­di­tion to the com­pul­sory stud­ies, the stu­dents take cour­ses from the school cur­ricu­lum so that they have a min­i­mum of 30 course units dur­ing the first aca­demic year. It is, how­ever, pos­si­ble in some cases to take cour­ses from out­side the school cur­ricu­lum. These ex­cep­tions must be agreed upon with the Diploma Pro­gramme Co­or­di­na­tor. The num­ber of 30 course units is the min­i­mum, but the stu­dents are strongly en­cour­aged to take more cour­ses if they wish, ac­cord­ing to their own in­ter­ests. It is ad­vis­able to take cour­ses that sup­port the stu­dent’s choices in the IB Diploma Pro­gramme. Should there oc­cur any prob­lems with the course se­lec­tion, the IB Fac­ulty is more than will­ing to help.

The com­pul­sory cour­ses for all 1ib stu­dents are as fol­lows:
preDP Finnish Cour­ses 1, 2 and 3
preDP Eng­lish Cour­ses 1, 2, 3 and 4
preDP Swedish Cour­ses 1&2 and 3
preDP Ad­vanced Math­e­mat­ics Cour­ses 1, 2, 3 and 4
preDP His­tory and So­cial Sci­ences Cour­ses 1 and 2
preDP Busi­ness man­age­ment 1
preDP Psy­chol­ogy Course 1
preDP Physics Course 1
preDP Chem­istry Course 1
preDP Bi­ol­ogy Course 1
preDP Meth­ods in Nat­u­ral Sci­ences Course 1
preDP Phi­los­o­phy Course 1

In or­der to be pro­moted to the IB Diploma Pro­gramme, the 1ib stu­dents are re­quired
• to have a min­i­mum of 60 cred­its suc­cess­fully com­pleted
• to have suc­cess­fully com­pleted all the com­pul­sory 1ib cour­ses as de­scribed above (with the ex­cep­tion of non-Finnish stu­dents who do not need to study Finnish or Swedish).

Should any of the pre­con­di­tions men­tioned above not be ful­filled, the stu­dents may still be ac­cepted to the IB Pro­gramme af­ter first con­sult­ing the Diploma Pro­gramme Co­or­di­na­tor and then ful­fill­ing the tasks given to them by the IB Fac­ulty. The dead­line for this ex­tra work is de­ter­mined by the IB Fac­ulty.

School reports

The stu­dents can fol­low their pro­gres­sion in stud­ies from Wilma -por­tal. In the cer­e­monies for all grad­u­ates in spring they will be awarded a fi­nal re­port, also called the school leav­ing cer­tifi­cate, and the white stu­dent cap, pro­vided that their fi­nal re­port ful­fils the given re­quire­ments. The IB Diploma will be awarded in the IB Diploma Award Cer­e­mony ar­ranged at the school on the first Fri­day of the fol­low­ing Sep­tem­ber.

The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (Classes 2ib and 3ib)

The two-year IB Diploma Pro­gramme (2ib and 3ib) con­sists of stud­ies in six (or seven) sub­jects, which are of­fered on two lev­els, Higher Level (HL) and Stan­dard Level (SL). The stu­dent must have at least three and not more than four sub­jects on HL. On HL there are 240 hours of in­struc­tion (equiv­a­lent to nine course units in the
na­tional pro­gramme), on SL 150 hours (5,5 course units). The sub­ject groups at Joen­suun Ly­seon Lukio are the fol­low­ing:
Group 1: Finnish A Lit­er­a­ture, Eng­lish A Lan­guage and Lit­er­a­ture
Group 2: Swedish B, Ger­man B
Group3: Busi­ness Man­age­ment, His­tory, Psy­chol­ogy
Group 4: Bi­ol­ogy, Chem­istry, Physics
Group 5: Math­e­mat­ics HL/SL, Math­e­mat­i­cal Stud­ies SL

In or­der to be awarded the IB Diploma the can­di­dates must
1. of­fer at least one sub­ject from each of the sub­ject groups above
2. of­fer at least three and not more than four sub­jects on Higher Level
3. sub­mit an Ex­tended Es­say on one of the sub­jects taught in the Diploma Pro­gramme
4. par­tic­i­pate in the course on The­ory of Knowl­edge and sub­mit the re­quired work
5. suc­cess­fully par­tic­i­pate in the CAS Pro­gramme (Cre­ativ­ity, Ac­tiv­ity, Ser­vice)

The ex­am­i­na­tions for Class 2ib are as fol­lows:
Au­tumn Term: 23 No­vem­ber – 30 No­vem­ber 2022, af­ter Term 2
Spring Term: 30 March – 6 April 2023, af­ter Term 4
Aca­demic pro­ba­tion test: to be agreed on to­gether with the cor­re­spond­ing teacher.

The ex­am­i­na­tions for Class 3ib are as fol­lows:
Au­tumn Term: 23 No­vem­ber – 30 No­vem­ber 2022, af­ter Term 2
Spring Term: 30 March – 6 March 2023 (Mock Ex­ams). Due to rea­sons of timetabling, the start­ing date may change
Fi­nal Ex­ams: 28 April – 17 May 2023

In or­der to be pro­moted to Class 3ib, the 2ib stu­dents are re­quired
1. to have suc­cess­fully com­pleted their stud­ies in the IB sub­jects on the fol­low­ing terms:
– the to­tal grade not less than 24 in six sub­jects (self-taught Lan­guage A can­di­dates: 20 points in five sub­jects)
– no SL sub­ject grade lower than 3
– no HL sub­ject lower than 4
2. to have suc­cess­fully com­pleted all the re­quired writ­ten as­sign­ments and other tasks set by the IB Fac­ulty, fol­low­ing the given dead­lines
3. not to have missed more than 15 per cent of their classes in each sub­ject course

If the stu­dent re­ceives a fail­ing grade (SL: lower than 3, HL: lower than 4), they be­come an “aca­demic pro­ba­tioner”: they must pass a test set by the cor­re­spond­ing teacher in or­der to be pro­moted to the fi­nal year of the IB Diploma Pro­gramme. This pro­ba­tion test is ar­ranged about one week prior to the next aca­demic year. It is
im­por­tant that the stu­dent in­forms the IB Co­or­di­na­tor by the end of May whether they will sit this ex­am­i­na­tion or not. If this test is not passed or not at­tended, the stu­dent is to start the IB Diploma Pro­gramme from the be­gin­ning the fol­low­ing au­tumn.

The IB faculty

Es­ke­li­nen Tanja Math­e­mat­ics
Fron­delius Sirpa Swedish B
Goran Minna Math­e­mat­ics
Has­si­nen Virpi Finnish A Lit­er­a­ture
He­liö Seija Finnish A Lit­er­a­ture
Hurskainen Antti-Ville Math­e­mat­ics, Physics
Iivari­nen Minna Psy­chol­ogy, The­ory of Knowl­edge, CAS
Kaikko­nen Niko Bi­ol­ogy
Kautto Kari His­tory
Kihlström Reetta Eng­lish A Lan­guage and Lit­er­a­ture
Kinttu Anni His­tory, Busi­ness man­age­ment
Lerch Adam DP Co­or­di­na­tion, Bi­ol­ogy, Chem­istry
Lin­tu­vuori Kris­ti­ina The­ory of Knowl­edge, Phi­los­o­phy
Paakki­nen Sampo Finnish A Lit­er­a­ture
Pihlman Juha Physics
Pihlman Ti­ina Ger­man B
Rieppo Jarkko Head of school
Varis Mikko Guid­ance coun­selling

The e-mail ad­dresses of the teach­ers can be com­piled as fol­lows:
first­name.last­name@edu.joen­suu.fi ex­cept the fol­low­ing: paivi.jalka­nen@joen­suu.fi (school sec­re­tary) and
jarkko.rieppo@joen­suu.fi (Head of school)
Home­room teach­ers: 1ib Minna Iivari­nen, 2ib Virpi Has­si­nen, 3ib Reetta Kihlström