Best Fit Pathways & Shaping Success Stories

On Wednesday evening, Prem International School hosted our Diploma Years Pathways Night: an opportunity for our graduating Middle Years Programme (MYP) students to find their best-fit pathways to success through the final two years at Prem – The Diploma Years.

The evening kicked off with a warm reception from our Senior School Principal Jeff Marquis. As Ajarn Jeff took time to welcome those families in the Senior School undercroft, along with others joining-us us via Zoom for this important event, we reflected on the importance of togetherness during this difficult time. Because, as the last two years have shown us, the Prem Mission of ‘working together for meaningful relationships, continuous learning and good thinking is all the more important as we work through the challenges of remote and blended learning.

Learning was very much alive and well during the course of our evening. Assistant Principal Joe Holroyd helped us to understand the diverse pathways that learners can take in the ‘Diploma Years’ at Prem. 

As the graphic indicates, all students at Prem graduate with The Prem High School Diploma – which really speaks to the unique value of life and learning at our leafy campus, complimenting the IB curriculum offerings. Ajarn Dawn, our University Guidance Counsellor, spoke to the great esteem in which universities hold Prem graduates. Because graduates of Prem have participated in extracurricular activities, led service projects, played in sports teams… because life and learning extends well beyond the classroom. Because these are the kind of student profiles that stand-out, that lead to interviews at universities like Oxford, Princeton and MIT. But, moreover, because – with the expert guidance provided by Ajarn Dawn and her team in the Counselling Office – university admissions, like life and learning at Prem, is personalised to suit the profile of each student. Or, as Ajarn Dawn pronounced it, with university destinations:‘Think best fit, not best name!’

Picking-up the theme of personalized learning at Prem, an interesting and impassioned talk was given by CP Coordinator Lisa Mcsweeney about the modern approach of the IBCP – the Careers-related Programme. This really gave the audience a lot to think about, and perhaps was not something they had really considered before. Again, in alignment with Prem’s mission of working together for a sustainable future, Ajarn Lisa shared how – in collaboration with innovative universities such as SUMAS in Switzerland – Prem’s IBCP programme can develop business and marketing skills along with sustainable practices.

Sharing profiles of current success stories of our IB Diploma programme – the International Baccalaureate (and Prem’s) oldest and most world-renowned programme – Ajarn Joe shared snapshots of students such as Cindy. Taking the ‘double-arts’ route through the Diploma, Cindy has found a plethora of pathways for creative expression, from clay to the video essay! With several offers already to choose from at top fashion schools in the UK, Cindy has shaped not just clay and multimedia but her own IB Diploma success story!

This theme of ‘best-fit pathways’ unified the evening’s presentations – and, indeed, The Diploma Years Education Fair that followed in our auditorium, where each of the different subject specialists within our diverse programmes met with students and parents.  The evening ended with a sense of excitement about future pathways. A sense of excitement about the next two years and what ‘working together for meaningful relationships, continuous learning and good thinking’ would really mean for the Diploma Years experience: one where students shape their own success stories.

Joseph Holroyd