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Full DP Core Requirements

In addition to the 6 academic courses required for the IB Diploma Program, students seeking the IB Diploma must complete the following three Core Requirements:

Creativity-Activity-Service (CAS)
CAS involves students in a range of activities alongside their academic studies throughout the Diploma Program. Creativity encourages students to engage in the arts and creative thinking. Action seeks to develop a healthy lifestyle through physical activity. Service with the community offers a vehicle for new learning with academic value. The three strands of CAS enhance students’ personal and interpersonal development through experiential learning and enable journeys of self-discovery.

CAS instruction is embedded in the 2-year Theory of Knowledge course. Students begin CAS at the start of 11th grade and finish by May of 12th grade.

Extended Essay (EE)
The EE asks students to engage in independent research through an in-depth study of a question relating to one of the DP subjects they are studying.  The world studies extended essay option allows students to focus on a topic of global significance which they examine through the lens of at least two DP subjects.

Instruction and hands-on workshop time are embedded in the first year of the 2-year Theory of Knowledge course. All students will have completed their EE by the end of the junior year. This allows them to include and discuss the colllege-level independent research they have completed when they are applying for universities.

Theory of Knowledge (ToK)
ToK is a class taken by students in the IBDP that helps them to develop a coherent approach to learning that unifies the academic disciplines. In this course on critical thinking, students inquire into the nature of knowing and deepen their understanding of knowledge as a human construction.

The ToK requirement offers students and their teachers the opportunity to reflect critically on diverse ways of knowing and on areas of knowledge, and to consider the role and nature of knowledge in their own culture, in the cultures of others, and in the wider world.

In addition, it prompts students to be aware of themselves as thinkers, encouraging them to become more acquainted with the complexity of knowledge and recognize the need to act responsibly in an increasingly interconnected world.

Students in the ToK class complete Internal and External Assessments that result in a score of A-E for the course. This score, in conjunction with the Extended Essay score, may add up to 3 points to the student’s total Diploma score. There is no end-of-course exam for ToK.