Assessing against IB criteria

Criteria and their strands are defined per subject and versioned. Versioning is what lets a mark awarded early in the year be interpreted correctly later, even after the descriptors were revised.

Defining them centrally rather than per task is what makes standardisation possible at all — teachers have to be marking the same thing.

A task states which criteria it assesses. Two criteria assessed carefully beat four assessed in passing, and over a year each criterion needs enough assessments to support a defensible final judgement.

Levels are awarded 0 to 8 against each criterion. The 1 to 7 grade is derived from the total rather than typed, so the grade and the evidence behind it cannot drift apart.

Marks stay in draft while you work. Nothing reaches a student until it is released.

Each teacher records an independent judgement first, and only then sees the others. The session shows the variance between them.

The agreed level is recorded as consensus, which is what puts the conversation into the record rather than leaving it as something three people remember differently.

Releasing is what makes a grade visible to a student and a family, and what admits it into report cards.

Because releasing is separate from marking, a cohort can be marked over a fortnight and released together.