Headteachers of schools offering the International Baccalaureate have been told that candidates will be given more time to apply for November resits before “late registration fees” apply.

The deadline has been pushed from the end of July to the end of August.

Heads were told in a meeting with the IB yesterday that the decision would allow candidates to see if they had secured university places with their current grades before applying to resit exams.

Since IB results were released on Monday last week, students and teachers have expressed concerns over the way grades were calculated, after many candidates received grades far lower than they had been predicted. 

The IB cancelled exams this year following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, and used a combination of school predicted grades, students’ coursework and historical data to produce grades this year for its Diploma Programme. 

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The grading process has been criticised after students and heads reported large disparities between students’ predicted and actual grades, and more than 20,000 people have signed an online petition calling for “justice” for candidates this year.

Student anger over IB results

The IB announced yesterday that it would change its appeals process to make it less risky for students to challenge their grades. 

The IB also said it would speak to schools individually to address concerns, and that there would be a three-tier appeals process whereby schools could challenge grades at an individual, subject department or school level.

Stephen Jones, the warden of St Edward’s School in Oxford, who attended yesterday’s meeting, said it was positive that “the IB seem to have acknowledged there are a number of anomalies”.

He said: “Certainly most of us have noticed departmental anomalies, where some departments are suddenly not getting sevens, where we have always had sevens, and then complete school anomalies, and I would say that we are 10 per cent down on our top grades.

“It’s positive that they have agreed to produce that sort of new review procedure, and they seem to be committed to making adjustments where they see that it’s gone wrong.

“The other concession they’ve made is the date for putting in November resits has been pushed back by a month to the end of August, which is after the university decision, which is a really helpful thing, to be fair, because if people have got their university place they probably won’t go for a resit.”

Richard Markham, chief executive of the IB Schools and Colleges Association (IBSCA), said: “It does appear that the IB are listening, it does appear that they have taken on board the volume of concerns that they’ve had raised with them by schools, and so what they are looking at is initiating a programme whereby a school can follow a case review through to appeal, either for a candidate or a subject level where they feel results are anomalous.

“Obviously there’s a degree of urgency around this because we’re nearing the beginning of the holiday for some schools, but it’s quite a welcome response from the IB.”

The meeting was attended by heads from Wellington College, Fettes College, Haileybury and Sevenoaks School.

A spokesperson for the IB said that “students can register for resits at any time but the IB has extended the date to which no late registration fee is applied”. 

“Previously the late registration fee was applied after 29 July and the IB has extended it to 31 August,” they added.