Where the official dates live
Every session's deadlines are published by the IB in the Handbook of procedures for the Diploma Programme and on its coordinator platforms, and those are the authority: the exact days move slightly from year to year, and a school that works from a remembered date will eventually be a day late with something that cannot be late. Read the current handbook in August, put every IB date into the school calendar, and then build the internal dates described below in front of each one.
The pattern, though, has been stable for years, which is what makes an annual calendar possible. For a May examination session the IB's deadlines fall in November, March, April and May, with results in early July; a November session mirrors them six months later.
The IB deadlines a May-session coordinator plans around
In recent sessions the fixed points have looked like this. Confirm each against the current handbook before publishing it to staff.
- Mid-November of the year before: candidate registration closes for the May session, with late fees after. Subjects, levels and any access arrangements requests belong to the same window.
- Mid-March: the eCoursework upload window closes for the extended essay, the TOK essay and the internally assessed work in the subjects that upload it, with the required forms attached.
- Around the twentieth of April: internal assessment marks, predicted grades and the moderation samples are due for the remaining subjects.
- Late April to late May: the written examinations, on the IB's published timetable.
- Early July: results are released to schools and candidates, followed by the window for enquiries upon results.
The internal calendar, month by month
A school's own deadlines exist so that nothing reaches the IB's date unmarked, unmoderated or unsigned. The month-by-month shape below is for a May session; shift it by six months for November.
- August — publish the year's calendar to staff and students; confirm subject choices and levels; brief new DP teachers on the IA requirements for their subject; set the extended essay supervision schedule.
- September — TOK prescribed titles are released; extended essay first reflection sessions; confirm candidate details for registration.
- October — internal registration cut-off two weeks before the IB's; access arrangement evidence collected; CAS progress check with every second-year student.
- November — IB registration submitted; extended essay interim reflections; first internal predicted grades so that university applications are not built on guesses.
- December — mock examinations or in-class assessments that produce evidence for predicted grades; extended essay full drafts back to students.
- January — final extended essay submitted internally; TOK essay drafts; internal deadline for IA drafts in subjects with early upload.
- February — internal standardisation of IAs where more than one teacher teaches a subject; extended essay viva voce and final reflections; TOK exhibition completed and moderated internally.
- Early March — everything for the March upload collected, checked against the IB's forms, and uploaded at least a week before the IB's date.
- Early April — remaining IA marks finalised and standardised; predicted grades reviewed by the coordinator against the evidence; CAS completion confirmed for every candidate.
- Mid-April — marks, predicted grades and samples uploaded ahead of the IB's date; examination timetable, rooms and invigilation published.
- May — examinations; the coordinator's job is invigilation, scripts and incidents, and nothing else should be scheduled for them.
- July — results; enquiries upon results requested by the IB's deadline; the debrief that plans next year's calendar.
The three pieces that most often arrive late
Across schools the same three components run late, and each has a fix that belongs in September, not March.
- The extended essay, because supervision is spread across the year and the reflection sessions are treated as optional. Timetable the three sessions and the viva voce like lessons.
- Internal assessment in subjects with one teacher, because nobody standardises them and the marks are finalised the night before upload. Pair single-teacher subjects with a colleague from a related subject for a standardisation read.
- CAS, because it has no IB upload date and so slips behind everything that does. The diploma is not awarded without it; set an internal completion date in April and check progress each term from year one.
Predicted grades deserve their own process
Predicted grades go to universities months before they go to the IB, and a school that treats them as a form to fill in April has already used them in October. Have teachers produce an evidence-based prediction in November, review it in February against mock results, and finalise it in April. The coordinator's review should ask one question of every prediction: what evidence would you show a parent who asked why?
Keep the predictions and the evidence together. When results arrive in July, comparing prediction with outcome by teacher and subject is the most useful ten minutes of the year, and the only way a school's predictions get more accurate.
What to keep from the year
The DP generates records the school will need again: the signed forms, the moderation samples, the standardisation notes, the CAS portfolios, the predicted grade evidence and the enquiries upon results. Keep them in one place, by candidate and by subject, for the period the IB requires and for programme evaluation. A coordinator who can find last year's extended essay reflections in two minutes runs a calmer March than one who cannot.
