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The Principal's traditional letter, updated for 2026
Hello final year students and guardians! I know we are all gearing up to return to school. Today I’m sharing 2 tips and information of which I want you to be aware.
Tip 1 is a quote that I love:
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” -Maya Angelou
Tip 2 comes directly from me 😊
Learning is a long-term process and for it to be successful, you must engage in that process. We at the school give the conditions necessary for that process to take place; it is only you who has full control over your degree of engagement in the process. Make the most of this last year and then you’ll have done the best you can!
Information you should know:
Consider this letter a letter of what you should be aware of prior to May exams. You (student and parent if the student is under 18) will get a "letter of concern" from me if after a review of your predicted grades, I can see you are at an obvious risk of not earning the diploma on the first attempt, if there is no improvement. The key to my previous sentence is the word "obvious", because, truthfully, each year we can be surprised by IB results and now can be a good time to remind you why.
This year I also included those with a mild risk because I can see that students who are at risk to not get 12 in their HL subjects should pay special attention to those subjects.
Remember that:
1. A student's final results come from the IB Organisation and not the school.
Our teachers make predictions. The predictions are built upon knowledge, experience and adherence to IB standards and practices. Predication accuracy varies by subject and level and Hvitfeldtska, and like literally all other schools, can never be 100% accurate. There are many factors that can affect accuracy, a few of the most significant are:
Student performance on the day(s) of the final exam papers. Final exam papers can account for up to 70-80% of a final grade.
o Specific content on exam papers is not known ahead of time.
Moderation of internal assessments can potentially affect results.
Grade boundaries which are set by the IB after all students in the world have tested.
2. Every year, worldwide, there will be students for whom the school expected them to earn a Diploma, but, ultimately they do not. This can be a major shock for the students, their guardians, and their teachers. This can happen by just one point, for example, not getting 12 points in the HL subjects (a requirement for the Diploma).
You can review the requirements for the Diploma here. Scroll to article 13 to see them.
Now if there is a concern in a specific subject (or more than one), the teacher has directly informed the student of the concern. The teacher will have also even met the student and attempted to guide them on how they can improve. Further, the student and guardian can see the student’s report published in June with predicated grades. They can thus review how the student is doing and be informed of the student’s progress overall. It is good to review the report card against the criteria for earning the Diploma to keep sight of the big picture requirements for earning a Diploma. Remember that the report publishes in Managebac and not all parents have an account, but the parent can ask the child to send the report to them. Parents can always request a Managebac account so they can more effectively have access to the major summative deadlines and the published reports. The DP Coordinator, Ms. Ingrid White Åshammar, will share a form for this, because if a student has turned 18, they’ll also need to give their permission for the parent to have a Managebac account.
As usual, feel free to reach out to me with any questions or concerns.
Thanks and see you soon!
Krista Baker
IB Principal, Hvitfeldtska
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