First highest mark achieved as all IB students successful
ALL of the Grammar School and Sixth Form Centre’s International Baccalaureate diploma students have passed their examinations this year.
And one achieved the highest mark possible, the first time any local student has done this.
This was the ninth year that the IB has been offered as an alternative to A-levels and head of year Chantelle De La Mare said that more than 20 students opted to take it.
It is offered in two forms, a diploma programme for those looking to go on to university, or a career-related programme which is more vocational in nature and has already led to two students finding work in the island’s finance sector.
Of the diploma students, four earned more than 40 points out of a total of 45, which is the equivalent to four A* grades at A-level.
The careers-related programme students also rated highly, with one earning maximum points across all subjects.
Diploma student Rhianna Trump, 17, scored 45 out of 45, the first time a Guernsey student has attained maximum marks, which Miss De La Mare said was equivalent to about five A*s.
Such a score is achieved only by 0.5% of the total number of IB students around the world – 173,878 this year.
Miss Trump is spending the summer as a care assistant at the hospital and will be going to study medicine and surgery in Southampton.
She was delighted with her score but said it had not been easy. ‘To be honest, I did consider changing to A-levels at one point,’ she said.
Sam Lowe, 18, scored 40 and is probably going to take a year off before looking to study medicine, possibly at a university in the USA, since, as a member of Guernsey’s Commonwealth Games swimming team, he could get a sports scholarship.
Jess Rowe, 18, earned 39 points, which she was happy with, since this was higher than her predicted score.
Long-term she hopes to study English literature but will probably take a gap year and travel first.
‘I applied to a university that required fewer points to get in because I didn’t think I would do as well as I did, but I think I would like to apply to Exeter, Durham or Edinburgh instead.’
Miss De La Mare said the students had all done ‘fantastically well’ since this was the first time they had taken formal examinations, having missed out on GCSE exams due to Covid.
She said that the nature of the exams, where students study several subjects including English, maths, science and a language, meant that the students had to be organised and develop good time management skills which would set them in good stead for university.
Principal Kieran James said the results were outstanding and ‘a testament to the hard work and dedication of both students and their teachers'.
'We congratulate them all on these results especially after their disrupted Sixth Form experience throughout the pandemic’.
The school also offers IB subject certificates instead of A-levels in several subjects – history, psychology, information technology, film and Spanish. Here, too, the pass rate was 100%.
