Year 13s presented their Theory of Knowledge Exhibitions to an engaged audience of Year 12 students.

It was a fantastic occasion and reflected the hard critical engagement the students had put into their drafts. The atmosphere within the Library and IB Common Room was bubbly and lively as students shared their insights into how TOK manifests in the world.

Last year, Toby Newton's final message to our Year 11 HT students was that he wanted them to recognise that the world, and people, were complex, recognising this can help foment a more patient and compassionate world view. Professor Ian McGilchrist is a deep thinker whose work on engaging with the "right-side" brain (tacit, experiential knowledge) informs a lot of our school's approach to education, as evidenced with our Deep Learning and Outdoor Learning programmes, which seek to connect students to nature and actively explore the world around them.

A lot of TOK is embedded in the "left-side" brain, with its focus on logical rationality and the systematic nature of knowledge produced within the scientific, technical world context in which we live. Yet, the quality of the conversations and insights from students, who also shared personal items that have shaped their worldview displayed the growth mindset we encourage here at ICHK.

By recognising that truth is not absolute, but shifting and malleable, open to interpretation and the forces of historical and technological development, we are also recognising what McGilchrist believes is so important, but often overlooked in a young person's education: we should encourage students to understand that there are always (at least) two sides to any situation in our inherently complex world.

The TOK exhibition forms one of the two assessments in the IB Theory of Knowledge course, and assesses the ability of the student to show how TOK manifests in the world around us.

The Year 13s are to be congratulated on all their hard work.