TRAFALGAR School at Downton is the only state comprehensive in the country to have been awarded the accolade of International Baccalaureate World School for its Middle Years Programme.

The International Baccalaureate (IB) was founded in Geneva, Switzerland in 1968 as a non-profit educational foundation.

Among its aims was the development of an educational framework which would help to develop the intellectual, personal, emotional and social skills to live, learn and work in a rapidly globalizing world.

Although the first IB schools were predominantly private international schools, this has changed over the years and today over half of all IB World Schools, worldwide are state schools.

Trafalgar’s assistant headteacher and curriculum development manager Jonny Cole said: “The Middle Years Programme (MYP) is a challenging and educationally sound structure on which we can build exciting and engaging subject knowledge. “We can prepare students thoroughly for GCSE success by ensuring they are skilled learners with a thirst for knowledge. The current national curriculum proposals are superseded by the MYP curriculum, ensuring our teachers have a solid foundation to approach creative learning strategies.

“Gaining this prestigious and rare honour has been a long time in the making and we are delighted that the four years of hard work in gaining it has paid off.”