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Reflective statement

The '50 words' personal reflection

A reflective statement written by each student on their involvement in the group 4 project must be included on the coversheet of their internal assessed Individual Scientific Investigation. The precise details about how this should be done is given in the IB Handbook of procedures. The form that must be completed is called the 4/ICCS and the personal reflection should be about 50 words long. In addition to the title of the group 4 project undertaken, a separate box is included on the cover sheet form for the reflective statement. The current version of form 4/ICCS can be downloaded from the Diploma Programme Assessment Procedures (Section: Assessment forms) available on the resources section of My IB.

The May/November 2019 version of form 4/ICCS © IBO

The following suggestion should produce enough material for the reflective statement which should not only satisfy the IB but also be of sound educational value.

The personal reflection is a statement of each student’s involvement in the project. What many schools do is get the students to evaluate the other students who worked with them on their team (peer-evaluation) and then ask each student to also refer to these evaluations from their peers when it comes to their own personal reflection. The IB probably only needs the personal reflection to show that the student has actually done the project as it is not formally assessed However from an educational point of view it is good for students to reflect on how well they work with others and how others see their contribution. It could be helpful to give the students two sorts of evaluation forms for them to complete. The two examples below can also be downloaded if you wish to use them.

During the 10 hours devoted to the project the teacher in charge of the group will have been able to go round and form some sort of opinion on each student. Some schools may ask the teacher to also give some feedback to each student on how well they cooperated with the group and what sort of contribution they made but this is not mandatory.

What is important is that each personal reflective statement is collected and retained by the school. It may be more than one whole year before it is actually added to the cover form to go with internally assessed Individual Scientific Investigation as form 4/ICCS does not actually need to be completed until April of the second year. From May 2019 form 4/ICCS must still be completed but it is retained by the school to be available if the IB requests to see it but it is no longer sent to the IB along with the sample IA reports for moderation. 

The problem of absence

The Group 4 Project is group work and must be completed by all students doing a Group 4 science subject (except Environmental systems and societies). This does actually create one small problem. What happens if a student is absent when the Group 4 Project is being done? They cannot do it on their own when they return to school and other students will not want to repeat it. There does not seem to be an easy solution to this. If others are absent too then a re-run can be arranged but what if they are the only one absent? They could do it with the next year’s cohort but the chances are that if it is done at the end of the first year it will be too late for them to include a reflective statement with their internally assessed work. A similar problem might arise if a student changes schools duirng the two year programme. All you can do is get your IB co-ordinator to contact the IB and await the IB’s response.

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