Self-study Process

The self-study process is documented in the self-study questionnaire. The questionnaire consists of two parts: a school’s self-assessment and documentation of programme development. The self-study questionnaire is completed by the school and submitted to the IB.

Self-assessment of the standards and practices is a detailed and thorough reflection by community members on each of the practices to confirm that the requirements for each practice are in place and to determine the level of development for each standard and practice. It is important that all the members of the school community have an opportunity to reflect and analyze programme development in the school and to work collaboratively to identify where the school excels, where it has shown growth and what needs additional attention.

In the self-assessment, the school checks that the programme(s) continues to meet all requirements identified for each practice in the IB Programme standards and practices publication. The standards are general principles that lie at the heart of being an IB World School, while practices are further definitions of the standards that include references to implementation. Requirements are more specific and refined measures of implementation and include programme-specific elements known as specifications. The standards and practices, requirements and programme specifications are necessary for the successful implementation of the relevant IB programme. Meeting the standards, practices, requirements and specifications is essential for schools to continue to offer IB programmes.

A thorough self-study process will provide the school with key information which will help it plan for programme development. The IB's comments about the degree of development of each standard will be taken into account and will be based on the self-assessment the school carries out.

You can find more orientation on how to organize the self-study here. 

Schools are free to organize and plan their self-assessment in whichever way they consider most appropriate but the IB recommends that there should be a steering group for each of the four categories in the programme standards and practices, namely Purpose, Environment, Culture and Learning. Each of the steering groups would be in charge of completing the corresponding section. This will be also useful if there is an evaluation visit since the evaluation team will conduct meetings per category: the school will be better prepared for these meetings if there is a steering group for each category which can provide valuable information about the process they followed and the conclusions they arrived at for each of the standards in each category.

The practices in each of the standards are aspirational so there will always be room for schools to continue developing them, implementing them, understanding them and integrating them in increasingly explicit and coherent ways. Practices are shared by all programmes, but they will be implemented in ways that are appropriate to the developmental stage of the students.

After confirming that all the requirements and specifications (if any) for each practice are present for each IB programme the school offers, the next step in the self-study process consists of determining, each practice, if the implementation of the practice in the school can be best described as "highly developed", "developed" or "developing". In deciding this, it is important that the school community should engage in deep reflection about each practice and consider the type of evidence to analyze in order to determine the level of development of each practice.

The following descriptors will assist schools in making decisions about development levels in relation to practices:

The school must also assess the level of development of each standard for each of the programmes the school offers. In order to do so, the school needs to think of the standard as a whole and decide if the standard, in the school, shows notable development, shows development beyond requirements, offers opportunity for further development or requires development. 

The school only has to choose a development level for each standard: it is not necessary for the school to justify their choice of level of development. 

The following descriptors will assist schools in making decisions about development levels in relation to standards:

Schools also need to describe and explain the main achievements and the major challenges related to each standard during the period being assessed. 

Once again, it is not necessary to provide evidence for the choices made. It is not necessary either for the school to provide additional documentation when submitting the self-study questionnaire.

The evaluation team will triangulate information from multiple sources, such as the documentation sent for the preliminary review and the findings that emerge from the conversations with leadership and teachers, to determine a level of development for each of the standards on the basis of all evidence.