Practical sessions run by IB practitioners - on assessment, planning and the bits of the programme that eat your evenings. Free to join, and every past session keeps its slide deck and Q&A here.
Every session stays online in full: the complete slide deck, photos from the day, and every question teachers asked with its answer. Covering assessment, planning and reporting across PYP, MYP and DP.
How to design and mark MYP Mathematics Criterion D tasks that ask students to apply maths to authentic, real-life situations. The follow-up to our Criterion B session, requested by the teachers who attended it.
Designing MYP Sciences tasks for Criterion B, Inquiring and designing: how students move from a testable question to a sound method, and what the top achievement levels look for in the on-screen eAssessment.
Criterion D, Reflecting on the impacts of science, asks for extended, essay-style thinking in a practical subject, and it is often the hardest criterion to teach and assess. Practical ways to structure these responses and mark them with confidence.
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM ISTView detailsCommand terms are shared across MYP Mathematics and Sciences, and misreading them costs students marks on answers they otherwise know. A cross-subject session on what each term demands and how to teach answer structure. Bring a colleague from the other department.
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM ISTView details
Criterion D — Applying mathematics in real-life contexts — is where strong maths students lose the most marks. They can do the maths; what costs them is everything around it: choosing the right strategy, judging whether their answer makes sense in the situation, and justifying the degree of accuracy. It's also the criterion teachers tell us is hardest to build authentic tasks for. In this session we'll cover: What Criterion D actually rewards, strand by strand, in plain language What separates a level 3–4 response from a level 7–8 response — with real student-style answers marked live How to design real-life context tasks that are genuinely assessable (and the common task types that look real-world but aren't) How Criterion D shows up in eAssessment, and how to prepare students for it Ready-to-use task structures you can take into class the next day For MYP Mathematics teachers of all year levels. If you joined our Criterion B session, this is the natural next step — same practical format, new criterion.
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM ISTView details
Criterion B — Inquiring and designing — asks students to write a question, form a testable hypothesis, pick their variables, and design a method before they ever touch equipment. Most students can run an experiment; far fewer can design one that earns top levels. That gap is usually about structure, not science. In this session we'll cover: - The Criterion B strands unpacked: what "explain," "formulate," and "design" demand at each achievement level - The hypothesis trap: why "I think X will happen" caps a student's level, and what a testable, scientifically reasoned hypothesis looks like - Variables done properly — independent, dependent, controlled — and how examiners read them - Marking practice on real student-style investigation plans, live - Task and scaffold ideas you can reuse across Biology, Chemistry and Physics For MYP Sciences teachers of all year levels — whether you teach integrated sciences or a single discipline.
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM ISTView details
Criterion D — Reflecting on the impacts of science — is the criterion science teachers most often under-assess. It asks students to write essay-style answers in a practical subject: evaluate how science affects people, societies and the environment, and back it up with reasoning and sources. Many students treat it as an opinion piece. It isn't — and the difference is markable. In this session we'll cover: - What Criterion D rewards, strand by strand — and what "discuss and evaluate" means at levels 7–8 versus "outline" at levels 1–2 - How to pick impact topics that give students something real to evaluate (not just "science is good and bad") - The structure of a top-level response: claim, consequence, counter-view, judgement - How scientific language and referencing are assessed inside this criterion - Marked examples of student-style responses across the achievement levels For MYP Sciences teachers of all year levels. Pairs well with our Criterion B session — together they cover the two criteria teachers ask about most.
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM ISTView details
State. Describe. Explain. Evaluate. Every MYP question starts with a command term, and every command term defines exactly how deep the answer must go. Students who know the content still lose marks by answering a "describe" when the question said "explain" — one of the most common, most command term defines exactly how deep the answer must go. Students who know the content still lose marks by answering a "describe" when the question said "explain" — one of the most common, most fixable mark leaks in the MYP. In this session we'll cover: - The command terms that matter most in Maths and Sciences, arranged as a depth ladder — what each one demands, and what it doesn't - Side-by-side answers to the same question at different command terms, so the difference becomes visible - How command terms connect to criteria and achievement levels — why an "explain" answer to an "evaluate" question caps the level - Simple classroom routines that train students to read the command term before the content - A reference sheet of Maths and Sciences command terms with student-friendly definitions, yours to keep For MYP Mathematics and Sciences teachers — and a good one to bring a colleague to, since command terms cut across every subject.
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM ISTView details