From the Principal’s Desk – 30 August, 2018

Dear Parents,

The IBO has finally published the IB Statistical Bulletin for the 2017 November Examinations in which our school took part. This information makes for interesting reading and I wanted to highlight a couple of stats from this session:

• 1,079 schools worldwide participated in the IB Diploma examinations
• HBIS was the only school from SA to sit the November session
• 16,535 students worldwide sat the examinations
• The DP Pass Rate was 69.79% (HBIS was 66.7%)
• The DP Mean grade was 4.63 (HBIS was 4.73)
• The DP Average total points of students who passed the Diploma was 28.56 (HBIS was 30 with the highest points being 37)
• And only 91 students of those 16,535 achieved the full 45 points

What strikes me most as I reviewed these latest stats, is that the standard of the IB qualification continues to remain of a particular high quality. This is not a qualification where every student who sits the examinations obtains the highest or maximum marks, and it’s most certainly not a qualification that gives you a false sense of achievement. You need to work, and work hard to achieve the prize. It is also encouraging to note that HBIS remains “up there” amongst the 1,079 other schools. What we see happening with our spread of results is very much in line with the spread seen worldwide. On the spectrum of those few students who do exceptionally well versus those few students who do particularly poorly, the majority of students are somewhere in between – representing the famous “bell curve”. And although I most certainly do not believe that any examination result should ever define you, these results do give a clear indication of a student’s attitude, and work ethic.

And such is life; not everyone can be right at the top or right at the bottom – the numbers of people in those categories are extremely small. The vast majority of us are somewhere in between – and what ultimately separates those that get ahead and make the most of the opportunities in front of them, is their attitude, their determination to work hard and their desire to learn from their mistakes.

This year’s graduate class has 19 students (our second biggest DP cohort in the history of our school) who will sit the 2018 November examinations. Each of them have the ability to do well and then some, but to do this they (like anyone else in life) will need to finally put all the pieces of their puzzle together – their personal efforts, the advice from their teachers, the 2 years’ worth of work covered in class, the support of their families and a genuine desire to really dig deep at the end will all stand them in good stead as they move speedily towards the end.

And like a mother eagle who pushes her babies out of the nest to force them to fly, so too is it almost time to push our DP class out of the nest and see how they fly. I (and the rest of the staff) most certainly believe that they (and all our students) have it in them.

Kind regards,

Grant Ruskovich