Appendix: The verification visit
Guide to school authorization: Diploma Programme 18
How is it organized?
School’s responsibilities
• Defining an agenda with the IB.
• Funding the visit, according to IB procedures established for this purpose.
• Providing the IB with information about nearby hotels to book for site visitors or making hotel
reservations, if applicable.
• Providing transportation for site visitors from and to the airport and from and to the school, if
applicable.
• Making available, in the school, a room for the use of the team throughout the visit where all
necessary documentation required by the team will be available. As meetings will normally take place
in the allocated room, it is the school’s responsibility to see that it is quiet and conducive to private
conversations.
• Providing meals during the school day.
• Providing the assistance of an external translator if meetings need to be conducted in a language
other than the IB working language identified by the school as its language of communication with
the IB (English, French or Spanish).
IB’s responsibilities
• Providing the school with dates for the visit, with enough time for the school to organize it.
• Appointing the members of the visiting team, whose names will be informed to the school in a timely
manner.
• Approving the final agenda, after consultation with the school. This will normally be carried out by the
leader of the visiting team.
The agenda for the visit
The visiting team leader decides which visiting team members and representatives of the school should
attend which meetings.
The agenda will be drafted to ensure that the different stakeholders will be able to attend at specific times.
Decisions about school staff attending meetings outside normal school hours are left to the school: the IB
cannot insist that the staff attend.
Any visits to classes will be carried out with the consent of the teacher(s) concerned.
Agenda items
The agenda for the visit will normally include the following items:
• Formal interviews with the school administration, governors/board members (if applicable), the
IB programme coordinator, the school pedagogical leadership team, teachers, librarians, groups
of students, parents and others who will be involved in the programme. These interviews will be
individual and in groups, as decided by the visiting team leader, and will adhere to the local legal
framework.
• Informal dialogues with teachers, students, administrators and other staff members who will be
involved in the programme.
• Observation of classes, if applicable.
• Tour of school facilities emphasizing the areas that will support the implementation of the programme
(library, laboratories, and so on).