DP Application for authorization: Self-review and reflection tool
This document supports candidate schools in preparation for the Application for authorization. It aligns with the programme requirements that must be in place for
authorization. The following overarching guidance documents are referenced throughout and are on the Programme Resource Centre.
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Application for authorization in My School user guide: Quick start guide
This cross-programme guide is intended for programme coordinators and Heads of Schools to use when completing the Application for authorization in My School. The
guide provides systems support in navigating the application in My School but it does not cover programme-specific content. For content support, please refer to the Guide
to school authorization: Diploma Programme that is available on the IB public website or contact support@ibo.org.
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Action plan in My School: Quick start guide
This guide is intended to support programme coordinators and heads of schools when using the action plan in My School. It provides support in navigating and using the
action plan, but it does not cover action plan content. Candidate schools work with their IB consultants during the consultation phase to develop an action plan specific to
the school’s context. For additional content support, please refer to Diploma Programme: From principles into practice or contact your programme relationship manager.
Areas of focus and
related practices
Preliminary review
Self-assessment
Completed:
What evidence do we have
to demonstrate this?
Developing:
How will we demonstrate
this during the verification
visit?
*Note—next steps may be
added to the school’s
action plan
Subject proposal/
initial course offering
PSP2014: B2.10, C2.1c
PSP2020: Leadership
3.1, Culture 1.3
Does our subject proposal accurately reflect all the IB
courses and core components we intend to offer at
first implementation?
Are the course levels and languages of instruction
correct? Does the course language identified in our
subject proposal match the language the outline is
written in?
Does our subject proposal offer at least one pathway
to the diploma?
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Longer term areas for
development
(post-authorization)
Note on subject availability: Not all Diploma
Programme (DP) courses are offered across both
examination sessions, this is especially important for
November examination session schools and courses
offered in languages other than English.
Does Diploma Programme Assessment procedures
(published annually) indicate that our DP subjects will
be offered during our examination session?
Mission and vision
Does our mission and vision align with that of the IB?
PSP2014: A1
Are there areas that could be further aligned?
PSP2020: Purpose
Action plan
PSP2014: A2
Have we completed an action plan, either in My
School or in our own format, which reflects the
school’s planning in relation to the IB Programme
standards and practices?
Are the action items current and complete with
realistic timelines, required resources, relevant
responsibilities, etc.?
Community
understanding and
commitment
Communicating
candidacy status and
intellectual property
policy
PSP2014: A3
Note: If the school develops its own action plan in a
separate format from the template provided within
My School platform, ensure that it is uploaded as an
additional supporting document and is clearly labelled.
Does our Application for candidacy describe our
actions and future plans to ensure all members of the
school community are familiar with and committed to
the programme?
Does our website and/or promotional materials
reference the IB or the DP? If so, does it include the
full “Required text for candidate schools” to use in
marketing materials?
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PSP2020: Purpose 2.1,
Purpose 3.1,
Leadership 1.2
Leadership
PSP2014: B1
PSP2020: Purpose 2.1,
Leadership 1.1,
Leadership 1.2,
Leadership 2.1,
Leadership 3, Culture
6.7, Lifelong learners
3.3
Policies
PSP2014: B1.5
PSP2020: Culture
The “Required text for candidate schools” is available
in the Resource library on the IB public website.
Ensure that both paragraphs of the text are used.
Note: If the school chooses not to reference the IB or
the IB programme in promotional material, it does not
need to use the required text.
Does our application include a DP coordinator job
description?
Have we updated our organizational chart since our
Application for candidacy submission to reflect the IB
programme roles and responsibilities?
Does the final version of the admission policy
reference the following:
 the IB programme(s) to be offered
 the procedure for enrolling into the programme
for both internal and external candidates?
Do we have draft language, inclusion and assessment
policies developed?
Does the academic integrity policy address the
following.
 Rationale/statement of purpose for the policy
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Details and advice on school responsibilities
Details and advice on teacher rights and responsibilities
Details and advice on librarian/media specialist responsibilities

Measures to provide education and support to students [regarding academic integrity]

Student rights, both internally at the school and within the IB,
if suspected of a breach of academic integrity
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For students: consequences of academic misconduct/remedial action/penalty tariff/follow-up/consequences of misconduct in external and internal assessments
For teachers: consequences of unethical practice
Details and advice on responsibilities of parent or legal guardian
Definitions and examples of academic misconduct
Guidance on the difference between legitimate collaboration
and unacceptable collusion
Age-appropriate guidance on expected behaviours—examples
of good referencing/good examination practice counterbalanced with examples of poor referencing/unacceptable practice
Scenarios and/or frequently asked questions
Procedures—reporting, recording and monitoring
Representation in the body responsible for policy formulation
and review committees
Review of the policy
Does the policy:
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consider physical and virtual spaces
articulate a planned integration of human, natural, built
and/or virtual resources
consider the learner profile
consider international-mindedness?
Optional
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
Does the school have access to plagiarism detection software? If so, is that referenced in the policy?
Does the school policy reference artificial intelligence (AI)?
Implementation
budget
Do the budget implementation years accurately align
with our authorization timeline?
PSP2014: B1.4, B1.6,
B2.1+1a+1b, B2.3,
B2.4, B2.5, B2.6, B2.12
Does our implementation budget include both
candidate programme fees and annual school fees*
following authorization? Do the fees align with the
correct budget years?
PSP2020: Leadership
4, Leadership 5,
Student support 1,
Student support 2,
Teacher support 2,
Does the budget include student examination fees
(where relevant)?
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Coherent curriculum
1, Culture 6
Does the budget include allocations for ongoing
commitment to professional development beyond
authorization?
Does the budget include allocations for any needed
resources, materials or facilities (where relevant)?
Does the implementation budget include TOK and
CAS?
Before finalizing the budget in the application, review
all fee details on the IB public website.
*Annual fees apply once the school is authorized.
Teacher staffing
PSP2014: B2.2
PSP2020: Leadership
5.1, Student support
1.2, Student support
2.3
IB professional
development
PSP2014: B2.3+3a
PSP2020: Leadership
2.2, Teacher support
2.1
Collaborative
planning time
PSP2014: B2.4, C1 (all)
Do all relevant teachers have a My IB account with an
IB role* attached?
*View the staff chart in B2.2 in the Application for
authorization on My School.
Are the workshop details for all required workshops
indicated in our application (either in the chart in
B2.3a or certificates uploaded as additional
documents)?
Does our application reflect our ongoing professional
development needs and planning of the staff beyond
authorization?
Does the chart of collaborative planning in section
B2.4 of our application reflect the following:
 planning time for all IB programme teachers and
coordinators
PSP2020: Leadership
3, Teacher support 3,
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Coherent curriculum
1.4, Coherent
curriculum 2,
Approaches to
teaching 2.2
Facilities
PSP2014: B2.5+5a+5b
PSP2020: Leadership
5, Student support 1,
Student support 2.3,
Coherent curriculum
2.3, Culture 6.3,
Culture 6.4

planning to address integration of theory of
knowledge (TOK) into the other elements of the
programme
 planning for vertical and horizontal articulation of
the programme
 periodic and systematic planning time dedicated
to the IB programme?
Does our application accurately describe our current
facilities and any plans for the future?
Do our science laboratory(ies) meet all IB
requirements as outlined in the Managing safety in
science laboratories and workshops publication?
Have we purchased data loggers for the science(s)
courses to be offered?
Does our application accurately describe the IT
resources available to support the programme
coordinator, teachers and students?
Has a graphic display calculator (GDC) been selected?
Or is there a plan to acquire the GDCs, regardless of
whether the school or families will purchase them?
Examination storage
PSP2014: B2.5c
PSP2020: Leadership
1.2, Student support
1.5
Library and the
librarian
PSP2014: B2.6+6a
Does our examination storage meet all IB
requirements outlined in the Secure storage of
confidential IB examinations material booklet?
Is our examination storage room dedicated exclusively
to examination storage?
Does our application accurately describe our
examination storage facilities?
Do we describe the librarian or member of staff
designated to support students and teachers in the
library?
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PSP2020: Student
support 1, Lifelong
learners 4, Culture 3,
Culture 4.3, Culture
6.4
Does the description address how the librarian
supports the IB programme?
Does our application describe any lending agreements
in place with public or university libraries?
Do we have in place all the library resources needed to
support the planned course offering (as per course
outlines)? Does our application accurately describe all
resources available to students and teachers?
(Consider physical and digital resources)
Student schedule
PSP2014: B2.10a+b+c
PSP2020: Leadership
3, Coherent
curriculum 1.5
Resources for the
extended essay
PSP2014: B2.12
PSP2020: Leadership
5.1, Approaches to
assessment 2.1,
Does our application evidence library resources in the
languages in which the DP courses will be offered, as
well as resources for the DP core?
Does the schedule explicitly address both Year 1 and
Year 2 of the programme? Is the schedule
differentiated for both years of the programme
(where necessary)?
Regardless of format, does the student schedule
communicate the following information?
 days of the week
 class periods per day
 length (in minutes) of each class period
 number of teaching weeks per year, with a shorter
second year to accommodate the IB examination
session.
Does our application describe the human resources
that will support the extended essay, such as a
coordinator and supervisors?
Does our application reference available resources to
support student research, writing and citation skills?
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Approaches to
assessment 4.1
Written curriculum
PSP2014: C2
PSP2020: Student
support 5.1, Coherent
curriculum (all),
Lifelong learners 2.2,
Lifelong learners 3.2,
Approaches to
teaching (all),
Approaches to
assessment 2,
Approaches to
assessment 4
Does the “Course outline” section of our application
accurately reflect our course offering?
Have we developed a course outline for all DP courses
to be offered at first implementation?
Have we developed a core outline for TOK and CAS?
Are all course outlines written in English, Spanish or
French? The IB also accepts certain outlines in German
(history, biology, chemistry, mathematics: analysis and
approaches and TOK only). Outlines for the DP core
and several DP subjects may also be submitted in
Korean or Japanese, check with your programme
relationship manager for further details.
Have our course outlines been developed
authentically and in a collaborative manner?
Are the course outlines completed on the required IB
templates?
Has the DP coordinator collaborated with programme
teachers to ensure that the course outline content
accurately reflects the subject guides?
Are we familiar with the curriculum development and
review cycles from the Diploma Programme updates?
Have we identified when each subject guide is
scheduled to be updated?
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In the case of upcoming guide changes, have we
developed a plan to update the course outline and
attend professional development on the new guide(s)?
Teaching and learning
in the IB
PSP2014: C3
PSP2020: Teacher
support 1.2, Learning
(all)
Assessment in the IB
PSP2014: C4
Teaching and learning in the DP begins after
authorization. As such, the practices for this standard
should be in progress during candidacy.
Does our application describe the ways in which the
school works with, and plans for, using the IB
approaches to teaching and learning, and academic
integrity practices?
Do our course outlines accurately describe our plans
for assessment in each course?
PSP2020: Approaches
to assessment (all)
Does our preliminary calendar of internal and external
assessment deadlines include all DP courses and core
components?
Process for the
extended essay (EE)
Does our application clarify our extended essay plans
for the following?
PSP2014: C4.9

PSP2020: Leadership
5.1, Lifelong learners
6, Approaches to
teaching 1,
Approaches to
teaching 2,
Approaches to
teaching 3,
Approaches to
assessment 2.1,
Approaches to
assessment 4.1
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A process for informing students and EE
supervisors of the requirements and expectations
for the core component
A process for matching students and EE
supervisors
A timeline or plan for the mandatory three
reflection sessions
The systems in place to ensure that all students
can demonstrate consolidation of their learning
through the completion of the DP extended essay