Alger B. Wilkins High School – IB Personal and Professional Skills

Apr 2026 · 2nd Semester

The personal and professional skills (PPS) course is designed for students to develop a range of skills that can be applied in various contexts to support their personal and professional growth both now and in the future. The course helps learners to develop not only as individuals but also as citizens within local and global communities. It prepares students for future higher education pathways, further training, or employment. The course supports student learning in the CP's other core components and elements by developing intrapersonal and interpersonal skills, critical and ethical thinking, and intercultural understanding. It prepares students for future pathways toward higher education, further training, or employment, as well as for their personal lives. The PPS is a compulsory component of the CP. It is a timetabled course of a minimum of 100 hours and is completed throughout the two years of the CP. The IB Theory of Knowledge (TOK) course plays a unique role in the DP by allowing students to refl ect on the nature, scope, and limitations of knowledge and the process of knowing. In this way, the main focus of TOK is not on students acquiring new knowledge but on helping students refl ect on and put into perspective what they already know. TOK underpins and helps to unite the subjects that students encounter in the rest of their DP studies. It engages students in explicit refl ection on how knowledge is arrived at in different disciplines and areas of knowledge, what these areas have in common, and their differences. This course is required for all IB students.