IB Diploma

"IB students have brought a great energy, determination and diversity to our campuses and they have adapted extremely well to University studies and life, no doubt in part thanks to the nature and academic rigour of the IB." - Sir Rick Trainor Principal at Kings College London

All students must take 3 Higher Level courses on the full IB Diploma, with 240 hours of tuition. These are generally the subjects that they show most interest and ability in and are likely to pursue at university.

Students must also take 3 Standard Level courses with 150 hours of tuition.

Students will also take the Theory of Knowledge course, the Extended Essay and the Creativity, Activity & Service programme all of which are compulsory for the IB Diploma.

Please see below for the subjects currently on offer. Please note that all subjects require a minimum number of students to run.

Grades 1-7

Each subject, whether Standard Level of Higher Level, is graded from 1 to 7. This enables for students to achieve a highest score of 42 points from their six subjects.

Students then achieve what are strangely called Bonus points from the Extended Essay and Theory of Knowledge (ToK) assessments. The Extended Essay and ToK are marked from A to E, and then the matrix to the right is used to calculate the number of Bonus points received. It is important to realise a grade E in either will result in the student failing the full IB Diploma programme.

Students must also complete to the ethos of the Creativity, Activity and Service programme although this is not assessed beyond a completed or not completed. If not completed again a student will fail the full IB Diploma.

Total score is out of 45 points.

Examinations

Internal Assessments

In May of the second year of the IB Diploma Programme, students will undertake IB Diploma examinations based on two years worth of teaching materials. Due to the degree of objectivity and reliability provided by the standard examination environment, externally marked examinations form the greatest share of assessment for each subject.

Please note however that some subjects have larger percentages than others, and so this may be a reason to think or choose certain subjects over others.

Visual Arts, Theatre and Music do not have any external examinations for instance. Design Technology has the largest percentage of Internal Assessment within the Science group.

The IB DP curriculum requires that students complete a major “project” in each IB Diploma subject they undertake enabling them to apply the knowledge and skills they are learning in the class to the assessment task. Such projects are formally called Internal Assessments (IA) because they are assessed “internally” by the subject teachers. To ensure consistency, IA projects are also moderated by IB examiners. The moderation process is an important part of maintaining consistency, fairness, high standards, and accountability in the IB Diploma Programme.

Some assessment tasks are conducted and overseen by teachers without the restrictions of examination conditions, but are then marked externally by examiners. Examples include Written tasks for Language A and Language B Acquisition, Theory of Knowledge and Extended Essays.

Failing Conditions

Whilst we do not want to focus on this, it is important that students and parents are aware of the conditions which mean the diploma is not awarded. This would be due to one or more of the following scenarios:

Lower than 24 total points.
Lower than 12 HL points.
Lower than 9 SL points.
Grade 3 awarded in more than three subjects.
Grade 2 awarded in more than two subjects.
Grade 1 awarded in any subject.
Grade E awarded in the Extended Essay or Theory of Knowledge.