Teachers often refer to the Learner Profile when they consider IB learners, as students grow these attributes throughout their courses. Each of the IB's programmes is committed to the development of students according to the IB learner profile.
The profile aims to develop learners who are:
Inquirers
Knowledgeable
Thinkers
Communicators
Principled
Open-minded
Caring
Risk-takers
Balanced
Reflective
Last week, students in year 13 had a chance to show these traits in a new and novel way. Their resilience and flexibility was demonstrated during exam week. This is the first time that our students sat exams whilst online learning, and were able to use a platform developed in Sweden for their national exams, to sit their exams online. This experience was an excellent chance for students to further develop their 21st Century skills in a different form – communicating their learning using new technologies whilst following the IB academic integrity principles.
The IB have listened to schools worldwide and reviewed the end of year exams for our year 13 students, in May 2021. Their response to our students during the pandemic has been to adjust the examination content in some subjects; examples include the removal of some exam papers, this includes:
- Removal of paper 2 in Language A assessments.
- Removal of listening components from language acquisition studies.
- Reduction of topics assessed in the humanities subjects resulting in a decrease in questions students will answer during an exam or the removal of a paper.
- Removal of paper 3 in the sciences resulting in less options topics taught and no required practical work for students during the year/removal of paper 2 in computer science.
- In-session mitigations for students in mathematics; the IB will communicate what this looks like after the exam session.
- Requirements for process portfolio and exhibition have been reduced in Visual Arts.
These changes to the IB end of two-year assessments have been welcomed by teachers who have planned the year 13 learning accordingly to best prepare our students, and discussed these changes and their implications with our students.
The changes in assessment this year has introduced the opportunity for our students to engage more fully with the content and concepts they are learning, and gives them a chance to inquire deeper into the areas of knowledge they are exposed to. We are very proud of our students’ mature approach to learning this year and are looking forward to seeing the results from their most recent exams.
Christine Lipsey
Head of IBDP