Just 14 people signed up for the programme.
Education, Sport & Culture confirmed they planned to pause the post-16 International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme at the Sixth Form Centre for the upcoming school year.
Education, Sport & Culture president Andrea Dudley-Owen said the programme was still a valued part of the Sixth Form Centre’s curriculum.
‘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,’ she said.
‘With this decision to pause the diploma, school leaders can now use staff more effectively to make a wider impact across education.
‘The committee found this a very challenging decision, not least because it feels too operational, but also because it is very supportive of the IBDP and the breadth of choice at Post 16.’
If the diploma programme, in which students each do six different subjects, had gone ahead, many classes would have had only one or two students in each, as a wide range of subjects had been chosen by the students.
‘Running the IBDP this year would have created a real disparity between some class sizes,’ she said.
‘Pausing the programme allows school leaders to use resources more efficiently, and we are still proud to be able to maintain a very broad, creative and diverse curriculum offer to students through A-Levels and IB Certificates, with every subject still available.’
IB Certificate subjects remain on offer to students who have made these choices to take alongside their A-Level pathway of study.
Students who started their IBDP in the 2024/25 academic year will not be affected by the pause, and their two-year course will continue to run.
The decision followed recommendations and advice from senior leaders across the Secondary School Partnership.
Deputy Dudley-Owen said that in future school leaders would make this kind of decision, in consultation with their Governance Board.
A comprehensive consultation and engagement process will take place between now and October 2025 to assess, and try to increase, the level of interest in the IBDP.
This will allow a decision to be made ahead of the curriculum offer for September 2026/27 being published.
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