An officer within the Ministry of Education is confident the launch of the Cambridge International Curriculum will be a success.

Terry Cox has been working with public school teachers toward the implementation of the new curriculum in September.

She said that the teachers have put in countless hours to learn the new material, undertaking online and in-house development courses.

An educator with 22 years experience, Mrs. Cox is now Acting Staff Development Officer.

"The new focus is quality teaching and learning for all students in the Bermuda public school system," she said.

"Our goal is for them to be successful beyond the curriculum. We want our students to be able to compete globally and locally.

"We have to make sure that our teachers are prepared to teach. All of these things will help us to be successful."

The Ministry of Education announced last May that it would adopt the Cambridge International Curriculum in an effort to make students more competitive on an international scale.

Schools had a soft implementation of the curriculum last year, Mrs. Cox said. The move helped teachers to become familiar with the framework.

"It allowed them to carry out some of the transitional requirements in terms of curriculum mapping and alignment to develop schemes of work and to organise the teaching resources and that gives teachers the opportunity to become familiar with all of the aspects of the curriculum."

Teachers worked with Cambridge employees on math, English and sciences.

Mrs. Cox continued: "Now that they have had all of the schemes the lesson plans, the units of work, the curriculum is designed to improve the education system. But in order to achieve a world-class system depends on high quality teaching.

"Teachers have been through schools and have had the opportunity to test it out. Full implementation this year actually means there will be a focus on quality teaching and learning.

"In the strategic plan there is one of our major goals to improve the quality of teaching and learning. We know that a curriculum in itself doesn't do that.

"This year will be focusing on teachers actually ensuring that standards are actually improved in learning."

She said teachers participated in workshops and completed online study courses for certification. They were also able to receive professional credits for doing the courses.

"This September we are going to ensure that we're adapting the national standards for professional development. They're designed to improve the learning of all students.

"They require us to have site-based professional development."

She continued: "It's about job-embedded professional development and it's a shift from teaching alone, to a focus on learning. Our teachers have also had other professional development that will assist them in the delivery of the programme."

Mrs. Cox said when the Bermuda Public School Curriculum was matched to the Cambridge Curriculum, there weren't many "significant gaps" but the difference is the Cambridge Curriculum is an international standard.

"It gives our students an international qualification. The good thing is that it allows us to have Bermuda-related information in the curriculum as long as we are keeping within the standards of the curriculum."

The Cambridge Curriculum will be used for math, English and sciences. Schools will continue with the Bermuda curriculum for social studies, the arts and PE.