The final two years of Senior School at Harrow International School Bengaluru are referred to as Sixth Form and provide an exciting culmination to each student’s academic journey through the school.
Harrow International School Bengaluru is authorised to deliver both the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) and Cambridge A levels. Similar numbers of students follow each course.
Both the IB and Cambridge curriculums are deliberately flexible, empowering students, teachers, and schools to personalize an education that is appropriate to their culture, context, needs, interests and learning ability. Through this local and global context, students connect their learning experiences to their real-world experiences, taking action to make a difference in their community, building practical problem-solving skills, critical thinking, and a lifelong sense of inquiry.
In the IBDP students study six subjects in total throughout the duration of the two-year programme, as well as the DP core. Made up of the three required components, the DP core aims to broaden students’ educational experience and challenge them to apply their knowledge and skills. Students mature and thrive through this core curriculum that builds their skills to value and comprehend different viewpoints and express their own with confidence, while further building and developing their capacity for self-directed learning. The extended essay provides an outlet for students to explore their passions and apply their independent research skills in preparation for future studies at university and beyond. The CAS element of the programme provides a structured way for students to give back to their local community and pursue their creative and sporting passions.
Our A level programme allows students to focus on four chosen subjects, selected from the broad range of courses on offer at Harrow Bengaluru. The focus and depth of A level provides a valuable option for those students with a firm understanding of their academic direction. At Harrow Bengaluru, the A level programme is supplemented by a highly extensive cocurricular programme which ensures that, as with our IBDP students, the A level cohort experience the same broad educational experience and build a profile which reflects their broad interests and varied successes.
We look forward to our first batch of students having the exciting opportunity to embrace the IB Diploma programme in August 2024, alongside our highly successful A level curriculum.
Sixth Formers at Harrow Bengaluru find that they need to take more responsibility for organising themselves. Classes are smaller, the atmosphere is more informal, and teachers generally look for more initiative from students in their approach to academic work. Homework may be set some weeks in advance and Sixth Form students therefore need to plan ahead, ensuring that work is not left to the last minute.
The Sixth Form also provides huge opportunity for students to explore beyond the regular syllabus by attending after-school lectures and engaging with the many voluntary academic clubs on offer. Wide-ranging project-based work allows students to demonstrate further their aptitudes and enthusiasm for their studies. This includes essay prize competitions run by Oxbridge colleges and other institutions, the Engineering Education Scheme, as well as Olympiads and challenges. Those who engage with such opportunities demonstrate the resilience and determination to focus on a project over an extended period. They also collaborate with their peers and develop their research techniques.
In this and many other ways, our students get a taste of teaching and learning at university, where they will need to be critical thinkers, to articulate difficult ideas and to grow in confidence, debate and intellectual discussion, if they are to excel.
Sixth Form life presents not only amazing academic and intellectual opportunities but also an even greater range of co-curricular experiences. This is a time for our students to develop further their leadership qualities, to take on responsibility and to be excellent role models for younger students in their House, displaying the Harrow values of courage, honour, humility and fellowship which underpin their education.
