Simon Says How to Approach the IB

2009 Alumni Simon Johnson, has recently published his first book, The IB Guide. Simon scored 44 points in the International Baccalaureate (IB) in November 2009 (New Zealand's joint-highest scoring IB student), and has now been offered a place at Cambridge University to study history.

Simon's objective for the book was to prevent people making the same mistakes he did. Having spent many hours struggling over assignments, Simon wanted to help a future generation of IB students. With the help of other generous students who contributed their essays, he has written a guide which explains exactly how to do each assignment in six of the most popular curriculum subjects. The IB Guide includes a series of model assignments and, more importantly, a clear explanation as to why they are good assignments, and how to do the same.

The book also includes a section for parents. Choosing whether or not to do the IB is one of the hardest decisions that a parent will have to make in their child’s education. He provides his reflections on this choice and what parents should consider when deciding whether it is the right path for their child.

As an offshoot of his book, Simon has also created a website for more information and where comments can be posted by students/parents researching the IB. Click here to view The IB Guide website where you can order your own copy.

Simon's sister Verity (also a Kristin student) assisted with the cover design for his book as well as Alumni Georgia Lowes. Simon would like to thank his peers (Andrew Chen, Frank Chui, Hillary Fee, Natasha Frost, Daniel Ko, Elliot Macdonald and Sam Owles) for their use of IB assignments and Kristin School IB teachers (Paul Daniels, Richard Darrow, Sharon Duley, Debbie Dwyer, Joanna Emeney, Elaine Jones, Helen McKissock, Ann Mair, Louise Mazengarb and John O'Connor) for helping him to pass.

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