It is never too early to start planning your child’s pathway to post-secondary study. Our Alberta Diploma has a great track record in preparing our students for university. With the introduction of the IB curriculum, we have opened up even more opportunities for their future studies. One hundred percent of our graduating students have been accepted into universities worldwide while garnering impressive scholarship offers. With tertiary education becoming more and more competitive, TIS Academic Counsellor, Ms. Jody Hubert, explains how the two programs offered at TIS help students stand out from their competitors.

In the fall of 2017, TIS started offering the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme (DP) in conjunction with the Alberta High School Diploma. We believe that this addition gives our students an added advantage in getting offers from top universities as well as giving them an edge once they start studying at those universities.

The International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) prides itself on developing well-rounded students who are ready for the rigors of post-secondary study and life beyond. Their “Learner Profile” is fundamental to everything that the system offers.

What makes TIS unique is our students now have the option of doing:

• The Alberta High School Diploma; or
• The Alberta High School Diploma and some IB DP; or
• The Alberta High School Diploma and a full IB Diploma Programme.

Both systems have a great deal of overlap in content and rely on inquiry-based learning. Inquiry-based learning challenges students to come up with fundamental questions to investigate. Both systems have challenging final exams which are created and marked outside of TIS. Both systems are widely accepted globally by universities when giving offers to students. Since students will be studying both programmes at the same time, they develop excellent study, time management and critical thinking skills.

The Alberta High School Diploma is taken over three years (Grade 10, 11, and 12) with courses finishing at the end of a school year. The IB DP is taken over two years (Grade 11 and 12) with courses continuing over the two years. The final exams for Alberta are based on the grade 12 content only, whereas the IB DP exams are based on all of the content over the two years.

At TIS, we offer a wide range of Alberta courses that students can challenge themselves with. We believe in letting them explore a variety of subjects to develop their passions and interests.

For a full IB Diploma, students study 6 courses as well as the “Core”. The Core is made up of Theory of Knowledge, Extended Essay and Creativity, Activity & Service. Theory of Knowledge challenges students to reflect on how knowledge is obtained and the meaning of truth. In this day and age, this component is very important in helping students to differentiate and learn about their own biases. The Extended Essay is a university-level research paper that students write over the two-year program. They decide on a subject, create a fundamental question, research or experiment and write the full paper. The skills gained in this component give students a great advantage when they go university and are required to write multiple papers. Creativity, Activity and Service helps students set goals and reflect on experiences that they partake in outside of the classroom. Students challenge themselves to find ways to give back to their community, locally and globally. The courses involves group projects as well.

TIS students graduating with the Alberta High School Diploma have received offers from top schools all over the world. The class of 2019 is the first year that TIS will have students graduating with the full IB Diploma. They are receiving offers that set conditions on either their Alberta High School marks or on their predicted IB DP grades.

If students are looking for a challenge that will allow them to investigate topics deeply and would like to put in extra effort now to ease the transition to university student life, they should contact their Academic Counsellor to have a discussion about picking the right courses to chart their future.

Jody Hubert, IB DP Coordinator
jody.hubert@tis.edu.mo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TIS Academic Counselling Team (l-r): Jody Hubert, Lindsey Doland, Dan d’Entremont