A review is not an evaluation
The IB evaluates each programme in a school on a cycle it sets, and the centre of that process is a self-study the school writes about itself. A programme review is something else: the school's own regular check on whether what it planned is what happens in classrooms, held whether or not an evaluation is near.
The reason to hold one is practical. A school that reviews every term arrives at evaluation with the self-study half written by habit. A school that does not discovers its gaps when the notice arrives. For the evaluation itself, see how to prepare the IB self-study; this page is about the routine that comes before it.
How to use the checklist
Do not try to review everything at once. Split the list into a short termly pass and a fuller annual one, give each area an owner, and cap the meeting. A review that takes a day gets postponed, and one that takes ninety minutes happens.
- Termly: one page covering assessment records, standardisation, evidence added since last time, and any student support that needs a decision
- Annually: the full checklist below, including policies, professional learning and a look back at the year's development focus
- Every item gets one of three marks: in place, developing, or not yet, with a named owner and a date for anything that is not in place
- The output is a one-page action list, not a report
Curriculum review
The question for curriculum is whether the written programme and the taught programme still match. Sample units from each year group and read them alongside what teachers say actually happened.
- Coverage: are the subject groups and required elements all present, with no year group carrying an unplanned gap?
- Progression: does learning build from one year to the next rather than repeating?
- Inquiry and concepts: are the programme's central ideas, concepts and global contexts visible in the units, not only in the titles?
- Approaches to learning: are the skills taught deliberately, and where?
- Connections: is there interdisciplinary work, and is it planned rather than incidental?
- Planned against delivered: do reflections show what changed during the unit, and did the planner change in response?
- Collaboration: are there records that teachers planned together, and when?
Assessment review
Assessment is where a review most often finds something, because consistency slips quietly. Look at records rather than intentions.
- Tasks: do they assess the criteria or objectives they claim to, and are all criteria seen often enough across the year?
- Feedback: is it specific enough for a student to act on?
- Standardisation and moderation: when did teachers last mark samples together, and were disagreements resolved and written down?
- Records: is the gradebook complete, and do the grades reported match the policy on how they are reached?
- Patterns: does any class, subject or teacher sit consistently above or below the rest, in a way that needs a professional conversation?
- Reporting: do families see the criterion or objective detail behind a grade, and is it explained?
Student growth and support review
This part of the review looks at the student rather than the document, and it needs the most care with privacy. Look at patterns across groups, and keep individual cases to the people who need them.
- Portfolios and reflections: are students building a record of their learning, and is someone reviewing it?
- Projects and goals: are culminating and personal projects, and any student goals, progressing to schedule?
- Support: who is receiving learning support or adjustments, are they working, and when are they next reviewed?
- Wellbeing and behaviour: do concerns get followed through, and are patterns by year group or class visible?
- Access and inclusion: does practice match the school's own policy, not only the wording of it?
Policies, professional learning and community
These are the items most likely to be true on paper and stale in practice. The check is a date and an owner for each, not a rewrite.
- Required policies: when was each last reviewed, by whom, and is it applied? The guides to the IB assessment policy and the IB academic integrity policy show what each should hold
- Professional learning: who has completed the training the programme expects, who is due, and did it change practice?
- Families: do parents understand the programme, and how would you know?
- Leadership and governance: is there a record that leaders and the board engage with the programme, not only approve its budget?
Evidence review
Close the review by asking what it produced that you would want to show a visitor. Map the evidence you hold to the programme's standards and practices, mark each as complete, in progress or missing, and give the gaps an owner. Then check quality: a practice supported by two strong pieces is better placed than one supported by twelve weak ones.
How to structure that record is covered in organising IB accreditation evidence, and what a visiting team tends to look for is in what an IB evaluator looks for.
Where skodle fits
This section names our own product, so weigh it accordingly. A shared document with the checklist above is a sound way to run a review, and most schools begin there.
skodle holds several of the records a review reads, in one place. Coordinators approve PYP and MYP units through draft, in-review and approved states, and for those units a gap report flags concepts that are overused or never used, approaches-to-learning skills and learner-profile attributes that are missing, and objectives that are unmapped or unassessed, from the mappings a person has approved. MYP standardisation is recorded as independent judgements by several teachers, with a spread of three levels or more flagged and a consensus written down. IB portfolio entries move from open to reviewed to approved. Staff professional learning is tracked as courses and competencies with reflections and claimed hours, which leaders can verify. Accreditation evidence is linked to a starter set of IB standards and practices, each carrying a status and actions with an owner and a due date, and a gap view lists practices that are not met and have no evidence. See accreditation management, the IB Engine and skodle for IB schools.
The limits, plainly. skodle does not run the review or prompt a team to hold one; that is a meeting people run. Coverage analysis reads PYP and MYP units, not Diploma or Career-related units, and it counts what people have mapped without judging whether a mapping is sound. Evidence is linked to a practice by a person, and its status is set by a person. The starter set of practices is representative and is not the IB's own numbered text. Policies are kept as titled links, without versions, review dates or acknowledgements, so the date a policy was last reviewed lives in your own log. It cannot tell you whether a practice is met, and it cannot predict what the IB will conclude.
Running the review meeting
Send the checklist and the relevant records two days ahead, so that the meeting is for deciding rather than reading. Take the areas in turn, mark each item, and stop discussing an item as soon as it has an owner and a date. Keep the minutes to the decisions.
Include someone who does not coordinate the programme. A head of department or a teacher from another subject will ask the questions a visitor would, and will notice what the coordinator has stopped seeing.
Turn the findings into a development focus
Over a year, the same items tend to come up as developing. Those are your candidates for a programme development focus, and choosing the one the reviews keep showing as weakest gives you twelve months of dated records against a real target when the evaluation arrives.
Make it measurable. "Improve assessment" is a wish; "mark a shared sample together every term and reduce disagreement of three levels or more" is something a termly review can check.
