Jason Berkeley Personal, Project Coordinator
What would you do if you were given the opportunity to spend 6 months working on a project of your choice? It is rare to get such an opportunity with our busy lives, but just about everyone has a passion or idea in the back of their mind that they just never have time to work on.
Students are no exception to this. Our students at Northbridge International School Cambodia (NISC) are expected to balance the demands of their academic subjects with sports, service, and other extra-curricular commitments. Although the IB MYP program is built with student agency in mind, all too often students can feel like there is no time to explore their personal interests.
The Personal Project is the designed to give students this agency and freedom of choice, while also allowing them to display the full range of skills they have acquired during their 5 years in the MYP program. While it is the final product of the students work that often draws our attention, the students engage in a lengthy inquiry cycle to bring their project to reality.
This begins with in depth learning about the topic of their project. Using a range of primary and secondary sources, students gather knowledge that will help them with their project and then create a detailed plan of action. They also identify their own criteria for success.
Next, students execute on their plan, creating a product of some kind that is connected to their own personal interests, while recording their progress in detail. The product does not have to be a physical item. Every year I am amazed with the creative products that are made by Grade 10 students. From architecture to cooking, or pottery to poems, the students always find new and interesting ways to express their ideas and talents.
To conclude the inquiry cycle, the students must reflect on both their learning and evaluate the success of their product. This is done as a report, which is graded externally by the IB as the penultimate part of the MYP program. Through this reflection, students show how they have applied a full range of skills in the completion of their project.
It is not always about success in the creation of your product either! A good reflection can be critical of what was created, showing that the student has learned valuable lessons they can carry forward with them at school but also in their life more broadly.
Regardless of the grade that the students achieve at the end of the process, all of them should have learned some valuable lessons. They will experience freedom of choice on a large project, maybe for the first time ever. Boundaries on what they think is possible will be stretched, and both strengths and weaknesses highlighted.
It is my sincere hope that all students take something away from their Personal Project, be it a deeper understanding of a personal area of interest, a deeper understanding of themselves, or even just a fun experience doing something they love!
Teenagers, including at Northbridge International School Cambodia, are at a crucial stage in their lives as they try to navigate the complexities of growing up. They are faced with the challenge of balancing academic demands, peer pressure, and family expectations, all while trying to discover their own identity and purpose in life.
After becoming a father for the second time on NYE 2022, I was able to re-evaluate my lifestyle and reflect on how to improve myself for my family, my community, including at Northbridge International School Cambodia, and the planet.
For school year 2022-2023, Northbridge International School Cambodia installed some updates in the Secondary Science Laboratory Classrooms that the NISC Health and Safety Audit Committee has been working on from the previous school year based on the Nord Anglia Regional Manager on Health and Safety suggestions.
For the last several months grade 10 students at Northbridge International School Cambodia have been thinking about their futures and the pathways they intend to take both next year in the DP and subsequently after.
