Each year, October becomes TOKtober at QAHS — a month dedicated to celebrating and exploring the International Baccalaureate subject Theory of Knowledge (TOK). Throughout the month, students are encouraged to pause, question, and reflect on how knowledge shapes the way we see and understand the world around us.
This year's theme, “Thinking Out Loud," has inspired plenty of creativity and curiosity. At lunchtime, students have enthusiastically engaged in a range of TOK activities, sharing their own “lightbulb moments" — those times when facts, ideas, or conversations spark new ways of thinking. We've heard students hypothesising about why we get brain freezes from eating Zooper Doopers too quickly, and just this week we watched representatives from each House compete in a lively TOK Trivia event. Questions like “Is it Shakespeare or Swift?" (It was Swift, by the way!) got everyone thinking and laughing in equal measure.
Our TOKtober celebrations will culminate in TOKTIKs, a much-anticipated Week 5 event where our self-nominated Year 11 students will showcase their TOK Exhibitions to the school community — each in just two minutes!
By centring TOK, a core part of the IB Diploma Programme, we help students reflect on how we know what we know — and discover that thinking out loud can be not only intellectually enriching, but also fun, engaging, and transformative.
Julie-Anne Johnston
Teaching Faculty (English)
TOK Coordinator