The British Curriculum
An internationally recognised programme, highly valued by the best universities in the world and which allows students to specialise in three or four subjects.
Curriculum
British education is a renowned system with outstanding international recognition and the largest number of affiliated schools worldwide. Its popularity and reputation remain unquestionable due to the high standards of pedagogical approaches and rigorous subject content. Universities value the reliability of the knowledge that students learn and the demand and rigour of the A-Level programme are a seal of guarantee and prestige. In addition, the practicality, possibility of specialisation and flexibility of the British curriculum offer an ideal context for our educational model.
Why do we choose
the International
A-Levels?
At Virtus, we work with the International A-Levels (IALs), a variant of the conventional A-Level in which students are officially examined in January and May of Year 12 and Year 13, dividing the examination content into four series instead of one. In addition, each subject is divided into modules (separate components) that allow work around the syllabus in a more structured way.
Examination with the International A-Levels
Year 12
Year 13
Examination with other programmes
Year 12
Year 13
Same international recognition by universities: IALs are no exception, all universities in the world accept them and grant the same prestige.
Better results: separating the exam content into four different series increases the probability of achieving better results.
Credible and endorsed predicted grades: obtaining official grades in Year 12 means that the predicted grades are backed by an official grade, giving universities greater security.
Better management of pressure and stress: as there are four different examination series, students face the same content but in small doses, thus reducing stress. In addition, they gain more experience sitting official exams and learning to deal with pressure.
Better control of expectations: regular exams are the “acid test” for meeting expectations. Students are more efficiently tracked in four separate exam series.
Allows for second chances: as the International A-Levels subjects are organised into separate modules, students who want to improve their grades can retake a particular module more than once.
Examination Strategy
The Roadmap for each student at Virtus lays the foundations for personal, academic and university goals, but it also serves to define each student’s examination strategy. Our students sit for internal exams every five weeks, an annual MOCK, and teachers decide their readiness for the official series depending on their progress.
This flexibility is an advantage for the student and the teachers, who can decide the best examination moment according to each student’s goals.
Subject offer
Each Virtus student specialises in 4 International A-Level subjects based on the university goals and advised by the staff and the conclusions drawn from the Vocational Profile.
Specialisation allows students to improve their performance and the probability of entering their degree and university of choice.
- Maths
- Further Maths
- Physics
- Chemistry
- Biology
- Economics
- Business
- Geography
- Psychology
- Media
- French
- English
- Spanish
Practical components
of the Curriculum
Through subject projects and laboratory practicals, Virtus students incorporate practical elements with a more technical approach to the study of their subjects. These improve understanding of the content and the ability to solve problems using prior knowledge.
Students with curricular interests that go beyond the scope of A-Levels can participate in academic olympics such as the Mathematical Olympiad or complete the Extended Project Qualification (EPQ). The EPQ is an individual or collaborative two-year research project that helps improve the ability to collect, organise and evaluate information, while working on university-level writing.
