The journey at a glance
A school moves from considering an IB programme, to requesting candidacy, to working as a candidate school, to a verification visit and a decision. Once authorized, it joins a cycle of programme evaluation. (Elsewhere on this site the same word is spelled authorisation; the IB itself writes authorization, and so does this page.)
The IB publishes the phases, requirements, fees and timelines for each programme and revises them, so its current guidance is the authority on every detail below. What follows is a way of organising the work, not a substitute for that guidance.
Step 1: understand the programme and your readiness
Schools begin by understanding the programme they want to offer, what it asks of teachers and leaders, what resources it needs and what expectations come with it. This is the cheapest stage to be honest in. A school that finds here that it lacks the staffing, time or commitment saves itself two years.
Read the programme documentation, speak to your IB regional office, and if you can, visit an authorized school offering the programme. Decide which programme to start with, because that choice sets the pace of everything after.
Step 2: request candidacy, and the IB candidate school requirements
The IB describes a formal request for candidacy, submitted by the school. The IB's current guidance sets out what it includes; in outline it involves a school and programme profile, an application, supporting documents and the applicable fee, and the requirements vary by programme and phase.
The IB candidate school requirements are therefore best read as a preparation task: gather the school's legal and governance information, a description of its community, a plan for the programme, and evidence that leadership understands and supports it, so the request is complete and credible when it goes in.
Step 3: candidacy and preparation
A candidate school works through programme-specific preparation: professional learning for leaders and teachers, planning and curriculum documentation, and implementation of the programme's requirements. This is the longest phase and where most of the evidence is made.
Among the documents a school needs are the policies the IB expects to see, such as language, assessment, academic integrity, and access and inclusion. The guides to the IB language policy, the IB assessment policy, the IB academic integrity policy and the IB access and inclusion policy cover what each must contain.
Where skodle fits
This section names our own product, so read it as that. Every step above can be done without software, and many schools begin in shared folders.
skodle holds a starter set of IB standards and practices under Purpose, Environment, Culture and Learning, which a school extends with its own. A person links units, assessments, projects and reflections to a practice, each practice carries a status (not started, in progress, met) and actions with an owner and a due date, and a gap view lists practices that are not met and have no evidence. Staff professional development is tracked as courses and competencies with reflections, evidence links, claimed hours and leadership verification, which is the kind of record candidacy asks for. Policies can be kept as titled links in a document list. See candidate-school software and accreditation management.
The limits, plainly. skodle has no candidacy-stage tracker or onboarding checklist and does not know which phase your school is in. Policies are titles and links, without versions, review dates or acknowledgements. Linking and status are set by people, not inferred; the starter set is not the IB's own numbered text; accreditation is modelled against IB standards and practices, not other frameworks; and a read-only evaluator link exists but is not yet something a coordinator creates with a button. It cannot decide whether a school is ready or predict the outcome of a verification visit.
Step 4: the verification visit and decision
The IB uses a verification visit to confirm the school's readiness, and afterwards reviews the report and the school's response to determine whether the requirements for authorization have been met. The visit is not a performance; it is an attempt to see whether the school works the way its documents say.
What the visiting team is trying to learn is set out in what an IB evaluator looks for during a school visit, which is written for evaluation visits but describes the same habit of mind.
What to organise in one central workspace
Whatever tools you use, keep one place where the school's authorization material lives, with an owner for each part.
- Programme plans and the school's rationale for the programme
- The policies the IB expects, with review dates
- Professional development records for leaders and staff
- Curriculum documentation: maps, units and the programme of inquiry or subject plans
- Assessment approaches, moderation and reporting
- Evidence of the programme in practice: student work, reflections and records
After authorization: the evaluation cycle
Authorization is not the end. Authorized schools are evaluated on a cycle set by the IB, using the programme standards and practices, and the evidence habits built during candidacy are the ones that make evaluation manageable. The evaluation side is covered in IB programme evaluation and self-study, and how to hold the evidence in how to organise IB accreditation evidence.
Common mistakes
Treating candidacy as a paperwork exercise rather than a period of real implementation. Leaving policy writing to the last term. Relying on one coordinator to hold everything. Collecting evidence backwards, in the weeks before the visit. And confusing local approvals with the IB's, which are separate; the Indian case is set out in how to start an IB school in India, and the evidence rhythm in the IB authorisation evidence checklist.
