When does IA season happen in the IB Diploma Programme?

There is no single official IA season that applies to every IB school. Many schools concentrate major milestones between September and November, especially for students in the second Diploma Programme year, but subject schedules vary considerably. Schools set internal deadlines early enough to mark, authenticate, moderate, and submit work through the required processes. Ask for the school's complete coursework calendar, including draft and final deadlines, rather than relying on dates found online. Treat the school's stated deadline as the operative deadline for your child.

Can I proofread my child's IB Internal Assessment?

A parent may notice basic presentation concerns, but extensive proofreading can become unauthorized editing. Do not rewrite sentences, restructure arguments, correct subject reasoning, or replace the student's vocabulary with more sophisticated language. A safer approach is to ask whether the student has used the school's required checking process and can identify the issues independently. If language support is permitted, its extent should be confirmed with the teacher before anyone reviews the draft. The student's final wording, decisions, and corrections must remain their own.

How often should I check my child's IA progress?

A scheduled weekly check-in is usually more useful than daily monitoring. Keep it brief and ask about deadlines, the next milestone, obstacles, and any question that needs to go to a teacher. Let the student update the plan and estimate the work rather than reporting every hour spent. Increase support temporarily if several deadlines collide or an agreed milestone is missed, but avoid turning the home into a second classroom. The goal is growing self-management, not continuous parental supervision.

What should I do if my child has left an IA until the last minute?

Begin by establishing what is complete, what is missing, and which deadline is fixed. Help the student create a minimum viable plan that prioritizes required components, authentic analysis, citations, and submission over cosmetic perfection. Encourage immediate contact with the teacher if the task cannot be completed appropriately or if an essential procedure has not been approved. Do not rescue the situation by writing, calculating, inventing data, or obtaining unauthorized assistance. After submission, review the planning failure calmly so the same pattern does not affect the next assessment.

Can an IB student use AI while completing an IA?

AI use must follow the IB's academic integrity expectations and the school's own policy, which may be more restrictive. Material produced by AI is not automatically the student's own work, even if the student modifies or paraphrases it. Any AI-generated content that is included must be transparently acknowledged according to the applicable instructions. Safer uses may include clarifying terminology or explaining feedback, provided the tool does not make assessed decisions or generate submission-ready writing. Students should ask their teacher before using AI when the permitted boundary is uncertain.

When should an IB parent contact the teacher or DP coordinator?

Contact the school when deadlines or procedures remain unclear, several requirements conflict, or your child cannot obtain necessary clarification independently. School involvement is also appropriate after repeated missed milestones, prolonged avoidance, serious sleep disruption, persistent panic, or a marked decline in daily functioning. Subject-specific questions should normally go to the teacher, while programme implementation and calendar concerns may belong with the DP coordinator. Frame the message around clarification, support, and a workable process rather than requesting a particular mark or exception. When there is an immediate safety or mental health concern, seek suitable professional or emergency support rather than waiting for an academic meeting.

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How to Support IA Season Without Taking Over

IB Diploma Parent Guides IB IA

• 21 Sept 2026•9

How to Support IA Season Without Taking Over

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How to Support IA Season Without Taking Over | RevisionDojo

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How to Support IA Season Without Taking Over

IB Diploma Parent Guides IB IA

• 21 Sept 2026•9

For parents asking how to support IA season without taking over, the central rule is simple: support the conditions around the work, but leave the academic decisions, analysis, and writing to your child. During the September-November IB parent fall term, this means making deadlines visible, protecting routines, asking neutral questions, and directing subject-specific concerns to teachers.

Internal Assessments assess skills such as investigation, oral communication, fieldwork, experimentation, and sustained analysis. However, there is no universal IB-wide IA season. Each school sets its own internal calendar, often with deadlines earlier than the dates by which work must reach the IB.

What IA season actually involves

The Diploma Programme uses internal and external assessment. According to the IB overview of Diploma Programme assessment, internal assessment can include language oral work, geography fieldwork, science investigations, mathematical explorations, and artistic performances.

Teachers usually mark IAs, after which the IB moderates the school's marking. Students must therefore use the current subject criteria and their teacher's instructions, not an old online checklist. The Extended Essay and TOK essay are coursework, but they are not subject IAs.

By September, some students are refining questions while others are drafting several assessments. November may combine final submissions, university applications, tests, and ordinary lessons. Ask for the school's calendar, not an assumed universal timetable.

The line between support and taking over

The IB's academic integrity policy expects parents to support manageable workloads while avoiding undue or unauthorized assistance. A sound boundary is: parents may discuss the process, but they do not edit the assessed document.

Helpful parent support	Support that crosses the line
Recording deadlines on a shared calendar	Setting the student's research question
Protecting quiet working time	Selecting or interpreting evidence
Asking the student to explain the next step	Performing calculations, coding, or analysis
Encouraging a question to the teacher	Rewriting or heavily copy-editing the draft
Checking that citations appear on a checklist	Finding and inserting sources
Arranging authorized support	Paying someone to repair assessed work

Over-editing is not harmless proofreading when it replaces the student's vocabulary, organization, or reasoning. The submission must authentically represent the student's work. RevisionDojo's guide to supporting a child's IB Internal Assessment offers further examples of appropriate process support.

Build a September-November plan the student owns

Hold one brief planning conversation each week instead of requesting daily updates. The student should identify tasks, estimate time, and record progress; the parent can help reveal competing commitments.

A practical autumn sequence might be:

September: confirm requirements, school deadlines, topic approval, research question, method, and ethical procedures.
October: complete evidence or data collection, draft substantial sections, and take specific questions to the teacher.
November: apply permitted feedback, strengthen analysis and evaluation, check citations, and complete submission requirements.

This is a planning model, not an official IB schedule. Follow school dates and include milestones for approval, data collection, drafts, feedback, and final upload. The IB parent timeline overview places IA work alongside other DP pressures.

Include buffer time because experiments fail, participants cancel, software causes problems, and feedback may require substantial revision. A calendar filled to 100% capacity is not realistic.

Ask questions that preserve ownership

Good questions expose the student's thinking without supplying answers:

What is the next concrete result you need to produce?
Which school deadline comes first?
Which criterion are you addressing?
What should you ask your teacher?
What does this evidence show in your own words?
How could you make tonight's task smaller?

Avoid disguised instructions such as, “Shouldn't you use this source?” If you already know the answer you want, you may be making an assessed decision for the student.

Protect health without lowering expectations

IA work competes with six subjects, the DP core, activities, and applications. Parents can reduce avoidable strain by making meals accessible, limiting interruptions during agreed work blocks, and protecting a reasonable stopping time.

Do not treat sleep deprivation as commitment. Distinguish among a time problem, a clarity problem, and a wellbeing problem. Reprioritize a time problem, direct a clarity problem to the teacher, and seek support for persistent distress.

RevisionDojo's IB mental health support guide for parents discusses warning patterns including sustained sleep disruption, withdrawal, panic, and difficulty beginning ordinary tasks. One difficult evening is common; an escalating pattern warrants attention.

Handle feedback, tutoring, and AI carefully

Teacher guidance and school academic integrity rules come first. When using tutoring or digital tools, confirm what the school permits and ensure that the student remains responsible for every revision.

The IB does not ban AI tools outright, but AI-produced material is not considered the student's own work. Included AI-generated material must be acknowledged and referenced, while schools may impose additional restrictions. Parents should never replace a student's draft with generated prose.

The RevisionDojo IA Guides can clarify subject-specific structure and criteria. Students can use the IB Coursework Grader for provisional, criterion-linked feedback, then independently decide what to revise and verify suggestions with teacher guidance. It does not provide an official grade, and Jojo AI should explain concepts rather than produce submission-ready sections.

When parents should contact the school

Students should contact the subject teacher first about criteria, methods, ethics, feedback, or content. Parents should intervene when deadlines remain unclear, several requirements conflict, communication has broken down, or the student repeatedly cannot create a viable plan.

The current DP general regulations direct students and legal guardians to use the school's DP coordinator as the intermediary for questions about programme implementation. Contacting the school to clarify procedures or address serious wellbeing concerns is appropriate. Negotiating ordinary academic decisions that the student can manage is not.

Conclusion

Effective IA support is structured but restrained. Help your child understand the calendar, maintain routines, formulate questions, and seek authorized guidance, while leaving research, reasoning, writing, and revision in their hands.

RevisionDojo can add structure through its IA Guides, Coursework Grader, and Jojo AI. Begin with a short weekly check-in, then use the relevant guide or feedback tool only when the student has identified a specific need.