Eighth IB cohort achieves record results

The eighth cohort of students received their results yesterday, with the group of 17 achieving on average 37 out of a possible 45 points.

Seven students achieved more than 40 points.

‘The school is incredibly proud of our diploma programme students who persevered throughout the Covid-19 pandemic and reached this milestone,’ said IB coordinator at the Sixth Form Centre, Paul Montague.

‘We can’t underestimate the problems of those two lockdowns and I’m so impressed with the way these students have coped with it.’

The school also offers students some individual IB subjects in place of A-levels or the full diploma programme and the pass rate for these certificates remained at 100%.

Averaging 37 points sees the students achieving the equivalent of three A’s at A-level and isfour points above the global average of 33.

The students were pleased with their results.

‘Everything went really well, I’m really pleased,’ said Amy Wallbridge, a prospective medicine student. She will be taking a gap year to work in the hospital while she studies for the UCAT exams required for medical students.

Daisy Dorrity chose the IB for the flexibility and broad fields of study it covers which she felt would prepare her well for the university courses she was interested in

‘I’m off to Trinity College, Dublin, which is really exciting’ she said. She will be studying biological sciences, with a particular interest in botany.

Another prospective medicine student, Aimee Snoding, said that due to the grade inflation caused by Covid in 2020, there had been significantly more applications to courses than usual this year.

Miss Snoding achieved the school’s best result with 43, which she said would be enough to secure her offer, despite the course seeing more than 4,000 applications.

‘I needed 36, excluding core, to go to Cardiff, so I’m going in September.’

A student who had come to the Sixth Form centre from La Mare de Carteret school for the IB, Ieva Tulie, said: ‘I got even better results than I was hoping for.’

She will be heading to Exeter University to study law. She had chosen the IB for the diversity of study it offered.

‘I didn’t really want to narrow myself down and then be out of options, with this I can take it anywhere in the world and it’ll be recognised.’

Mr Montague said that due to the consistent popularity of the IB since its initial offering that the Sixth Form Centre was looking to also offer the IB career-related programme in the future.

That replaces one academic higher level course with a vocational career-related study.

The sixth-form centre will be partnering with the College of Further Education to offer the programme, which will have a finance oriented focus.

International Baccalaureate factfile

The diploma programme is an alternative qualification to A-levels for students at the sixth form level. It is widely recognised internationally and offers students a broader education than three more specialist subjects in A-levels.

On the IB diploma, students must study six academic subjects including a language and mathematics, with three of those subject being studied at a higher and three at a standard level.

The diploma also includes three other elements – an extended essay on a topic of their choice, study of the theory of knowledge and creativity, activity and service requirements.

Each academic subject is graded from one to seven with a maximum three marks for the ‘core’ elements totalling 45 available points.