How Were Predicted Grade

Allocations Determined?

Asheesh Misra
Asheesh Misra

On February 4, 2021 the IB announced a dual route to the May 2021 assessments. This announcement has caused a multitude of reactions and confusion throughout the IB community. Regardless of how you feel about this decision, it is the current state of IB for 2021. In order to make the best of things, we need to unpack what this communication explicitly says and learn how we can use this information to help our teachers provide better outcomes for students.

To unpack this information we held four free webinars during February and March of 2021. IB educators from across the globe attended and discussed their plans for the 2021 testing season. If you happened to miss these sessions you can access the presentation and videos links.

It is important for your teams to know and understand how the IB determined both your predicted grade allocations and the significance of accurately assigning predicted grades.

What Can We Learn from May 2020?
In determining May 2020 results, the IB communicated what matters most. First, the internal assessment (IA) is very important. In order to gain a better understanding of how IB viewed your IAs, it is recommended that you review your scored IAs and engage in collaborative learning around how IB scored them. Secondly, our predicted grades are extremely important. Predicted grades are an indication of our alignment or misalignment with IB expectations. Are your predicted grades in alignment with IB and have they been in years past? How do you award predicted grades? Talking through those questions will help teams discuss their current state. It is essential that teachers shift from applying generous or conservative predicted grades to applying accurate ones In order to achieve a high level of accuracy, teaching teams need to gain a true understanding of how and why their students received particular marks in previous years. This reflective practice will empower teams with accurate feedback for learners.

What We Know About May 2021 - The IB has communicated two paths to awarding scores in May 2021.

1) Schools that have students in the building can give students exams based on a reduced curriculum (the reduced curriculum will continue through the 2021-2022) school year.
· All Internal Assessments will be scored by IB examiners.
· Scores will be awarded on modified grade boundaries.

2) Schools that do not have students in the building or are in a hybrid model do not have to give exams.
· All Internal Assessments will be scored by IB examiners.
· Scores will be awarded based on a combination of Internal Assessment Score and the Predicted Grade.
· Scores will be computed using a formula - IA 20% to 40% and Predicted Grade 60% to 80% = an out of 100 scores as in the past.

Under either model the IB is asking schools to examine how they award predicted grades and if their May 2021 grades are in alignment to the historical performance of the school, subject, and level.

If you are giving exams or not you will have to award predicted grades based on an allocation of predicted grades provided by IB. Based on the historical performance of a school, IB will provide schools with an allocation of predicted grades based on the number of students enrolled

How Does the IB Determine Your Predicted Grade Allocation?
The IB will look at the historical percentage of scores achieved for a given school, subject, and level. From this historical look, IB determines a percentage of grades that were actually awarded.

For example:
Historical Performance

For the example school above, when the IB did their historical analysis at this school for History HL, they found that 11% of the marks awarded were 7s, 21% of the marks awarded were 6s, 32% of the marks awarded were 5s, etc. They then looked at the number of students currently enrolled in this class. This class currently has 30 students enrolled in it. The number of students enrolled is then multiplied by the percentages from the historical analysis.

Current Enrollment

Knowing that it is impossible to have fractional students, IB generously rounded each allocation up to create the final allocation.

Final Allocation

Your allocations can be found in IBIS.

Now that we know how IB calculated your predicted grade allocation, what steps are you going to take?

Explore this question in our next article, The Answer to Strengthening Your Predicted Grades.

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