Prized Writing 2014
Introduction from John Sprague, Director of IB, Sevenoaks School
Every year in February each of our Lower Sixth students embarks on a
journey which will be the one of the biggest challenges of their young
academic careers: the IB Extended Essay. It is undoubtedly a daunting
task: a 4000-word independently researched essay on a topic of their
own choice, often in a subject that they’ve only been studying for six
months. Every year, however, all of our students reach their goal having
produced a remarkable piece of original research. I say ‘independent’ and
genuinely mean it. The IB is pretty clear in its expectations: supervisors
are to spend no more than five hours over a six-month process working
directly with the student and at no point are we allowed to edit the
student’s writing or compel them into any particular direction. The
students choose and develop their ideas; we help them bring them
to fruition. It is without a doubt the most difficult academic work in
which they will have engaged to date. It is also the element of the IB
which seems to most prepare them for the rigour and independence of
undergraduate study.
Again and again we hear from our visiting alumni that it was the Extended
Essay that prepared them most for university research and gave them
a clear advantage among their undergraduate peers. The collection of
essays contained in this, our first edition of Prized Writing, are genuinely
that – prized. We, their supervisors and teachers, think they stand
out solely on the basis of the originality of their topics, the levels of
commitment and enthusiasm of the authors and the demonstrated ability
of these students to overcome whatever difficulties they encountered in
the research and writing process. The essays were purposely chosen
before they received any external marks from IB examiners. We are,
undoubtedly, proud of each of the 212 essays submitted to the IB in May
2014 and would stand by any one of them, but these seemed to be first
among equals, so we share them with you.
They are included unedited, in exactly the way that they are submitted
to the IB, so there may be some idiosyncrasies within, but this is what
makes them so special. They’ve been written by real students doing their
absolute best, and we applaud them.
2