Mr. Whitehouse is Elmwood’s Head of School. He also teaches Grade 11 and 12 History, including the IB History HL.
Elmwood has a proud and long history with the International Baccalaureate programme. Starting back in 1978 when Elmwood was first authorised to offer the IB Diploma, the programme now runs through our entire school from Pre-K to Grade 12. In the final two years of the programme, Elmwood students are able to choose the IB Diploma, which has them select six subjects from a balanced array of offerings. Students must also take a Theory of Knowledge Course, write a 4000 word extended essay, and sit upwards of fifteen different standardized exams at the end of Grade 12. After two years of study and final examinations, students are awarded a final mark out of 45. Each subject is assessed out of seven, and the final three marks come from their Extended Essay and Theory of Knowledge assessment as well as the fulfillment of a Creativity, Activity and Service (CAS) requirement.
Over the years, the IB Diploma programme has become more and more popular in the school, especially now as Elmwood has removed any financial barriers for our students. It is, importantly, a choice, and many students elect not to follow the programme in its entirety, choosing instead to follow specific IB Diploma certificates. Others choose to focus solely on Ontario Ministry courses. Our students are exceptional and chose their academic route depending on what best suits their needs and future plans.
Throughout the world, there are currently 3072 IB Diploma Schools. Our students’ results were exceptional this past year, with Elmwood achieving an average IB points score of just over 37 points (out of 45). This result puts Elmwood in the top 3% of schools across the world. In Canada, which has one of the largest populations of IB Diploma schools, Elmwood is conservatively placed in the top 1% of schools from this year’s results. We say conservatively as Canadian schools do not readily publish their results and the IB do not group results by country. We gather this information from our relationships with the top Canadian schools. We also had one graduate score of 44 out of 45, which is an incredible achievement and only achieved by 2% of the entire world’s candidates. The average score per course at 5.7 (out of a total of 7) far exceeds the world average and translates to an Ontario percentage of about 92%. Students who received a perfect 7 in their courses (of which there were six, several of whom received multiple 7’s) achieved the equivalent of an Ontario score of 100% in those courses.
I wanted to share this information with you as we sometimes don’t celebrate our successes enough when we are measured externally. This is just another example of our amazing school with a community that cares and supports its students, and we should be proud of our global position, status and success.
Written by Elmwood's Head of School, Mr James Whitehouse. Mr Whitehouse also teaches Grade 11 and 12 History, including the IB History HL.