The IB today (Friday 27th March) published some initial guidance as to how final marks might be awarded following the cancellation of the May 2020 exams.

The IB will no doubt be giving further guidance to all schools in time. I found the following sections of this guidance reassuring.

Scrolling down the the Results section (IB text in italics) my personal reflections in blue (which are simply one experienced IB teacher's interpretation/understanding of the IB's official statement released today).

How will the results be calculated?

We will be using vast historical assessment data to ensure that we follow a rigorous process of due diligence in what is a truly unprecedent situation.

We will be undertaking significant data analysis from previous exam sessions, individual school data, subject data as well as comparative data of schools who have already completed uploading requirements and those who have not.

We will require schools to submit the coursework for all candidates.

We will externally mark work that is usually marked by teachers, instead of taking samples and applying moderation.

I do not know if this means, given many schools (outside of Asia) may already have marked their internal assessments, teacher's marks and annotated student work will be collected, but rather than just a sample, every single students work will be checked by examiners and the examiners mark (the examiner having read the teacher's comments and annotations) be final

. .. OR if it means. ..

examiners (and perhaps schools who have not yet uploaded their coursework) will be asked to mark student's internal assessments, without paying attention to any annotations or marks already present on the scripts.

I imagine it may be the former, as marking every internal assessment from every school will be a considerable increase of marking by itself, without also having to mark from scratch (which implies also checking that all calculations are correct, which is usually the responsibility of the teacher), but i do not know. With many exam paper markers no longer required, perhaps they will be re-trained to mark IAs, hugely increasing the IA marking capacity of the IB and hence making the latter approach achieveable, if preferred.

In the following section, I have not modified the IB's original text, only added bullet points and additional spacing to separate out what seem, to me, to be some keypoints.

Some students perform better in exam conditions than coursework, can we be sure they are not being disadvantaged?

We will use a calculation that is based on:

•  the relationship between coursework marks, predicted grades and subject grades to estimate the subject grades candidates would have received if the exams had gone ahead.
   
• If the relationship between these elements shows that in previous sessions candidates globally tended to achieve higher outcomes on their exams than their coursework, the calculation used this session will reflect that.

Recalling this sentence from the "How will results be calculated" section: "We will be undertaking significant data analysis from previous exam sessions, individual school data . . . " I could envisage the IB using individual school data to make a judgement on:

• How do the school's mathematics department predicted grades (deadline usually around 20th April, for the May examining session) compare, historically, with the final grades awarded by the IB e.g. if the school's  PGs have, historically, consistently over-estimated, or under-estimated, then an appropriate moderation factor will be applied to that school's PGs
• How do schools' students' IA grades compare with their final exam grade? e.g. if a school's IA grades are consistently higher than their final exam grades, or consistently lower, then an appropriate moderation factor will be taken into account if/when the IA component is used, in some way & weight, to contribute to the final grade.
• "Globally" how do IA and predicted grades tend to relate to each other (IAs generally higher than exam grades, or vice-versa? Differences by IB region? etc.)

As stated above, this is my personal interpretation of the IB's published statement. If it is correct, or along similar lines as those the IB is intending to follow, I am re-assured by what I read today. Using teacher's in-depth knowledge of students (the predicted grade, shared only with the IB), in combination with the balancing arm of the IB's records of each school's mathematic's department PGs, IA and final outcomes, it seems a fair, reasonable and appropriate approach in the face of current circumstances.

The above interpretations are the authors own, as are any errors.