International Baccalaureate (IB)

How this works in a running school

IB programmes place demands on school software that differ from a national curriculum in specific, testable ways. Assessment uses criterion-related descriptors rather than simple percentage marks, the Diploma Programme requires tracking of core components alongside subject grades, and reporting has to express achievement against criteria in a form parents and the organisation both recognise.

The practical question during evaluation is not whether a platform claims IB support but whether its grading model can express criterion levels without being forced through a percentage field. Where it cannot, schools end up maintaining assessment outside the platform and using it only for administration.

What to check when evaluating it

• Whether the grading model supports criterion-related assessment rather than only percentages.
• Whether subject-group structure and programme levels can be represented.
• Whether report card templates can express criterion achievement in the expected form.
• How core components alongside subject grades are recorded and reported.
• Whether a school running IB alongside another curriculum can use different grading scales concurrently.

What it costs to get wrong

The specific risk is buying on a claim of IB support and finding that criterion levels have to be forced through a percentage field. When that happens, assessment moves out of the platform into teacher spreadsheets, report cards misrepresent achievement against criteria, and the school is left reconciling two records. Because the constraint is architectural rather than cosmetic, it is rarely fixable by configuration. Testing your actual assessment model, with real criterion descriptors, is the only reliable check.

International Baccalaureate (IB): common questions

What does school software need to support IB programmes?

Criterion-related assessment rather than percentage-only grading, subject-group structure, report templates that express criterion achievement, and the ability to record core programme components alongside subject grades.

Multiple concurrent grading scales matter for schools running IB alongside another curriculum.

Can one platform handle IB and a national curriculum together?

Only if it supports more than one grading scale and assessment model at the same time.

Schools running both should test this explicitly, because single-scale assumptions force one of the two curricula into a model that does not fit.

Does IB assessment work with a standard gradebook?

Partially. Continuous work can be recorded in a conventional gradebook, but criterion levels need to be stored as levels rather than converted to percentages and back.

Conversion loses information and produces report cards that misrepresent achievement.

Can criterion levels and percentages coexist on one record?

They need to where a school reports criterion achievement internally and a percentage externally, or runs IB alongside another curriculum.

Storing both separately avoids the lossy conversion that occurs when levels are pushed through a percentage field and mapped back.