IB REPORT ON GRADES -percentages of 7s per subject - WOW

http://ibo.org/newsletter_recognition/march_2006/articletwo/

Click on this link to read an IB report on Grades in 2006. Don't worry, the percentages are still accurate.
Can you see the 3 under the Grade 7 beside English? That's right, 3% get a 7 annually.

This is posted to help students and parents understand that on average 3% of all students in the world achieve a 7 in English. It might be argued that this percentage puts a lot of pressure on students, parents and teachers or that it creates a feeling that to score a 6 or 7 in English your skills have to be similar to a university student or graduate. You do have to work hard and it takes two years of that hard work to achieve your potential.
Indeed, 73% of the students in the graph got either a 4 or 5 in English. Only 22% achieved a 7 or 6.  It might be argued that  only 3% got an A, 19% Grade B and a whopping 73% 'only' achieved Grade C. Our English IB results in 2011 were significantly above the global average and will be in 2013, Please bear in mind that the IB is a rigorous programme and that students should expect to develope their skills and knowledge over the course of the programme. The IB demands critical thinking, imaginative response to texts and elegance in writing literary analysis. Clearly the statistics show that this is the hardest subject of the lot to score a 6 or 7. But students can and do improve with teaching which challenges them to think and discuss texts in class, while doing most of the reading at home.
The way students write about texts, including their commentaries will improve with good listening and note-taking in class, ask yourself here - do I take notes in class -the practice  of writing commentaries over the 2 years and by thinking about their thinking. Discussions in literature class should be closer to the model in university tutor groups than in the model of 'teacher tells me the answer.'
IB Literature has more in common with TOK, History, Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology than anything resembling a literature course in most non-IB programmes. There is simply no comparison. Read the IB Learner Profile and then live it!

So statistically, 78% of all IB English students do not achieve a 7 or 6 in the final diploma grade - in other words a Grade A or B.  So comparing IB grades in English with other less rigorous systems is simply not going to make you happy or make any sense at all.
I hope this helps put our recent discussions in perspective. Please do feel free to post here if you find this report useful.  This article from the rather sensationalist 'Daily Mail' UK newspaper, suggest that there has been 'grade inflation' in the  A Level system while the IB students achieved grades in the same proportion of the total cohort year after year.
The IB regards the 7 and 6 or Grade A and Grade B in English as an honour grade, worthy of respect and so should we. Only 22% of all the students in the world achieve these grades.
If 73% of IB students attain a Grade 4 or 5 - that is arguably a C in some systems, we should be very very pleased with our recent results. Over the moon, actually.Now let's make sure that we can justify and sustain them in the second quarter.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-394399/A-level-blow-Baccalaureate-given-rating-5-A-grades.html