Taunton School students are celebrating their International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme results, with nine students achieving scores equivalent to four A* grades at A Level or more.
Top achievers Callum Macintyre and Max Kharchenko got the highest diploma score this year of 41 points out of 45. This puts them well ahead of the world average 30 points. The average score this year is 34.2 with 27 students achieving their IB Diploma. Over half the students achieved 36 points or more, allowing entry to top universities across the country and overseas.
Callum said: “I’ve never experienced an official ‘results day’ so it’s great to come to school and collect my results with my friends. The whole process here has been excellent and I really believe I wouldn’t have got the same results anywhere else. I’m taking a gap year now, volunteering in South America and then I will be applying to Cambridge for human social and political science. I can see myself working in an NGO or foreign policy environment, or journalism, in the future.”
Max Karchenko, 17, will now be heading to Queen Mary University of London to read law. He took higher level economics, geography and English and standard level design technology, Spanish and maths.
Head Girl Josie Taylor is celebrating securing her university offer to read medicine at Bristol University after achieving 39 points. She said: “I’m so pleased to have got the requirements for my first choice university. I especially needed a high score in chemistry and biology which I’m glad to say I got! I’m quite interested in paediatrics, so I may do something in that field in the future but I’m keeping my options open.”
School prefect Joey Rogers will read science at Maastrict University in the Netherlands. He commented: “I’m really pleased to have got good results across the board. Even though I had an unconditional university offer, I tried hard and was playing for pride for these results. I’m especially glad to have done better than my brothers who did the IB a few years ago!”
Nina Porter is planning to go to University College London to study social sciences and said: “It’s a massive relief to get my results today as it means I have secured my first choice university. Today I’ll be celebrating with my friends and family. In the future I hope to work in fields such as broadcast journalism or working with NGOs or IGOs.”
The IB Diploma has now been established for 50 years with Taunton School being one of the first in the region to set up their IB programme in 2007. Martin Bluemel, the programme director, commented: “This is our 10th set of Diploma results and I’m delighted that our students have once again excelled themselves with these impressive results.”
This year’s results are the third highest on record for the school. Headmaster Lee Glaser said: “Our students have worked tirelessly to secure these outstanding results. Many of them have chosen to follow some truly inspirational careers, and I wish them well on their journey. At Taunton School we pride ourselves on giving students the very best experience, and I look forward to news of further successes this summer.”