The uncertainty of markbands
A question I keep getting is - what are the markbands for the new curriculum? The answer is: no one knows. And I know that this answer fills us all with a bit of anxiety. However, I would encourage you not to be anxious about exams, although I do recognize that this doesn't help you with your school's grading policies.
Below I will try to explain why I am not worried and make some suggestions for marking your students' work.
IB Markbands
We are in the situation where no aspect of the former curriculum's assessments is the same in the new. Of course, this makes us feel rather uncertain about whether our students will be successful.
The good news is that this cohort will help the IB to set the standard for future cohorts. The first set of exams is where the assessment team gets to see what students can do and whether the bar may have been too high. This will result in that all-important first subject report, which explains what students did well and how they could improve.
At grade award, a team of examiners reads a sample of exams and compares them to the Group 3 grade descriptors. These descriptors clarify the expectations for each markband across subjects. For example, while a 6 asks for “appropriate use of terminology”, a 7 looks at the range and precision of the use of terminology. Once it is decided, for example, that most students who scored 18/24 match the “7” descriptor and most with a 17/24 match the “6” descriptor, the boundaries are set.
The final step is to make sure that the exam is not more difficult than past exams. Once all of the calculations are run (which I do not 100% understand), they will see what percentage earned each grade markband. The goal is to keep the percentage of each in line with past performance. So, we will not see an overall decrease in scores on this first set of exams.
Interim markbands
At this stage, it is too early to be giving full papers. For most of us, we are focusing only on Paper 2B or questions for Paper 1A and B. In this case, we need to develop our own mark bands that communicate realistic expectations to our students and use assessment rubrics to show them how to improve.
I will use the following simple guidelines for Paper 1.
Paper 1 A: Since this is only worth a total of 8 marks, I give a 7 if they earn all 8 marks, a 6 for 7 marks, and then a 5 for 5 or 6 marks. Then I award matching marks for all marks lower than 5 (i.e., a 4 is a 4).
Paper 1B: This section is worth 12 marks. I give a 7 for 11 - 12, and then I work by 2s down the scale (9 - 10 is a 6). The lowest mark would then be a 2. I would only give a 1 if a student earned zero marks.
If you are combining Paper 1A and 1B, then you have 20 marks. I would use the following: 7: 18 - 20; 6: 16 - 17: 5: 13 - 15; 4: 10 -12; 3: 7 - 9; 2: 4 - 6; 1: below 4.
Paper 1C: This essay is worth 15 marks. I would award a 7 for the top 2 marks and then go down by 2s (e.g., a 6 would be 12 - 13 marks)
Total Paper 1: For the total for Paper 1, I added my markbands above but I think that a 7 would be too difficult, so I did a bit of of adjusting. My proposed markbands are: 7: 30+; 6: 26 - 29; 5: 20 - 25; 4: 16 - 19; 3: 10 - 15; 2: 5 - 9; 1: 0 - 4.
The same strategy would be use for the other two papers and the IA.
Please remember, this is just an example of how I will assign grades for my students. These are not IB markbands. And it is not 100% based on a mathematically logical approach. Feel free to tweek this as you feel most appropriate for your students.