Brentwood School students on results day

Bedford Girls' School

Another record-breaking year for IB students

Independent schools across the UK are celebrating stellar performance in the International Baccalaureate

Posted by Stephanie Broad | July 08, 2016 | Teaching

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• #haileybury
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• #independent-schools

Bedford Girls’ School’s average score this year (out of a maximum of 45 points) for the 2016 cohort is 36.4, beating the worldwide average of 30 points.

For the second time in Bedford Girls’ short history a student, Sophie Allen, has achieved an extraordinary 45 points, the highest grade possible, placing her in the top 0.1% of IB students worldwide. In addition, Iona Webster impressively scored a 7 in her Higher Level Maths. Both girls are waiting for confirmation of their Oxbridge places. 

Over two thirds of the Higher Level papers achieved the equivalent of an A to A*, whilst 85% of all Standard Level papers recorded an equivalent of an A* to B.  

Jo MacKenzie, Bedford Girls’ School Headmistress, said: “I am extremely proud of the girls, these results are a testament to their hard work and commitment, and to the staff’s superb teaching and support of the students.

“I believe the IB Diploma is an outstanding qualification, offering students not only a strong academic grounding but embedding a breadth of skills which will provide an incredible foundation for life.” 

Red Maids’ Class of 2016 collected the schools’ sixth set of International Baccalaureate Diploma (IB) results, propelling students at the Bristol all-girls school onto a wide range of degrees at some of the world’s leading universities including University College London, Warwick, and King’s College London. 

Three girls earned 40 or more points out of a maximum possible of 45. Others met or exceeded their predicted scores.

Red Maids’ is the only school in Bristol to offer the IB Diploma as an alternative to A-levels.

Isabel Tobias, the school’s Headmistress, said: “The IB provides our students with a broad education, an international outlook, vital critical thinking skills and excellent preparation for university life and beyond.” 

Delighted students at Brentwood School arrived to pick up the results of their International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme exams on Tuesday, learning that they were the school’s most successful ever cohort. 

Out of 26 students, six achieved 40 points or higher out of the possible 45. Hamish Kadirkamanathan scored a world-class 44 points, which puts him in the top 0.9% of students globally according to the IB website and secures his place to study Japanese at Cambridge University. Hamish paid tribute to all the teachers who have gone the extra mile to offer him support, and plans to spend the summer reading, learning to drive, and visiting Japan to pick up the language before he embarks on studying it. 

The school has been offering the alternative to A-levels since 2007 and has enjoyed a highly credible six-year average IB score of 35 points, but this year the average is 37 points, potentially placing it within the top 10 IB Schools in the country and among the best in the world. The School’s IB Diploma Programme Director, Jonathan Barfield, commented:

“These are the best set of results in the history of the IB at Brentwood School. It’s a testament to the hard work put in by the students and the first class teaching offered by our talented teachers.”

Buckswood School is delighted to have achieved a 100% pass rate for the fifth year in a row. All of the Buckswood IB students are now taking their pick of their offers from Russell Group universities and studying subjects such as Dentistry, Information Technology Management, Medicine, Creative Advertising and Engineering.

Headteacher Mark Redsell said: “The IB qualification really suits Buckswood students. Being a 50% international and 50% British school, students, over the course of their studies at Buckswood are becoming global citizens with an inherent understanding of the world and different cultures. We teach 17 different languages and have 47 different nations here, so the international origins of the IB qualification enables our students to shine and yet again we have another year of 100% passes and a fantastic set of Russell Group university offers for both our IB and A-level students to study such a wide range of degree subjects from Medicine to Estate Management ahead of successful, fulfilling careers.” 

Haileybury students have achieved a collective provisional average score of 37.41 points – the equivalent of 73% A*-A at A-level.  

This is the college’s second best ever set of IB Diploma results. Seventeen of the 58 pupils achieved over 40 points (out of a possible 45), placing them in the top seven per cent of all students sitting the IB globally. Haileybury has been teaching the IB Diploma since 1998.

Many of the pupils will now go on to study at universities in the UK and all over the world, including one pupil to the University of Oxford. Simon Smith, Deputy Head (Academic), said: “Well done to all our pupils for their excellent IB Diploma results. The provisional collective average of 37.41 is our second best ever set of IB Diploma results. Such success is of course very much down to the pupils’ own talents and efforts, but thank you also to the Haileybury community who offer support in so many different ways.” 

The fifth year of the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma at King Edward’s School in Birmingham has also produced some outstanding results.

The maximum score of 45 points was gained by three boys, Alex Fung, Joshua Kimblin and Sam Shah, a score achieved by only 146 students worldwide out of almost 150,000 IB students in total. A further four scored 44 points and 50% of the cohort attained scores of 40 points or above: 40 points is the equivalent of more than four A*s at A-level. 23 boys will be taking up places at Oxford and Cambridge and 24 boys will study medicine.

The average score is 38.8 points, eight points above the global average and the second highest point score achieved since the school switched to the IB Diploma in 2010, beaten only by last year’s record results. 

On Tuesday John Claughton, Chief Master of King Edward’s School, said: “Not only will these results give our boys places at the very best universities, but all the evidence, from our own pupils and wider data, suggests that our boys do more and do better at university than their A-level counterparts.

“Today I retire as Chief Master at King Edward’s and the biggest decision we have taken in my time has been to adopt the IB Diploma. Five years after that decision, I remain utterly convinced that it is a truly challenging qualification which does a much better job for our boys than A-levels which are going back to the narrowness of the past. Whether we are in Europe or not, our future lies in our dealings with the wider world and the IB Diploma supports that in so many different ways. Maybe it’s about time that some other schools showed some vision and broke out of a system that is forever being tinkered with to no good effect.” 

The results at King Edward's Witley represent the second-best set of grades since the school moved to an all-IB sixth form curriculum in 2011*. Almost three quarters of papers taken by students in the exam - considered to be the global 'gold standard' for school leavers - were graded at the equivalent to A-level A*-B grades. Of the 94% of pupils who achieved a pass in the diploma, the average points score in 2016 increased to 33.5, well above the worldwide average for IB students, which is 30 points out of a possible 45.

Pupils at Scarborough College are celebrating another superb year with an average points score equivalent to an A* and two A grades at A-level, in terms of university entrance currency.

Students will be going on to study an eclectic mix of courses ranging from medicine to acting, and from agriculture to international relations. 

Headmaster, Charles Ellison, commented: "We are all delighted by today's remarkable results which pay testimony to the ceaseless hard work of students and staff. Once again the IB has proven to be an ideal academic platform from which to access the most competitive courses at the most prestigious universities in the UK and beyond. Increasingly, universities are hunting out IB students to make offers to, as they have clearly proven themselves over time to make the most successful undergraduates, not least due to the essence of critical thinking, academic independence and high personal organisation that the IB instills in all who study it." 

Find out more about IB at www.ibo.org