Part 5 of 5: Being the Best Supervisor For the New Extended Essay

Being the Best Supervisor For the New Extended Essay

Part 5 of 5

September 29, 2025

This is part five of our five-part series on the new Extended Essay, which is based on the experience you can have in our Effectively Supervising the New Extended Essay workshop on November 8th.

Thank you so much to all of you who have already signed up—the interest has been tremendous. And if you haven’t had a chance to sign up yet, take a look at the link above. We’d love to host you.

This week is dedicated to the idea of being the best Extended Essay Supervisor we can be for the new Extended Essay.

So, how do you do that?

Three Essential Sections of the Subject Guide

There are three really important sections of the subject guide that you need to be familiar with.

#1) The Mark Scheme. That is critical. That is how the essay is going to be assessed. And I like to think of the Mark Scheme as the audience for the paper. Ultimately, the student needs to write a paper that makes the Mark Scheme really happy.

#2) The Subject-Specific Guidance. As I mentioned last week, this is really important. You need to dig deep. Read it closely. And especially take a look at the last part of it—Considering the Assessment Criteria. That section is incredibly important because it shows exactly how an essay in your particular Subject Group is expected to hit the Mark Scheme.

#3) And this is new...is a section called Generic Guidance for the Extended Essay. Now, I’ll be honest, that is a terrible name for this section. To me, “generic guidance” sounds like lame or unimportant guidance. But that is not true at all. In fact, the Generic Guidance for the Extended Essay is phenomenal. This section begins on page 36 of the Subject Guide, and it is one of the most useful parts of the entire document. If you want to be the best Extended Essay Supervisor you can possibly be, you need to be a master of this section.

Why the Generic Guidance Is So Important

It’s only seven pages, but it is packed with clarity.

Here’s what it includes:

A clear overview of the Extended Essay.
Guidance on choosing a topic and how to approach it.
General advice on the research and writing process.
An excellent set of diagrams that explain how to select an appropriate, diverse set of information, how to analyze that information, and how to manage the research process. These diagrams are excellent.
A really clear, colorful 10-step process for writing the essay.
A diagram on primary and secondary sources (page 38) that clearly states the difference between them and provides examples. This is so important, and so helpful for students.
And at the end, a section called Using the Assessment Criteria to Inform the Writing of the Essay. This literally walks students—and us—through Criteria A, B, C, D, and E, explaining what an essay in any Subject Area needs to do to meet the criteria.

This section is excellent.

It gives students and Supervisors a roadmap for how to write the essay and how to hit the Mark Scheme.

My Thoughts and Takeaways...

If you want to be the best Extended Essay Supervisor you can possibly be, you must read and clearly understand these three sections of the Subject Guide: the Mark Scheme, the Subject-Specific Guidance, and the Generic Guidance for the Extended Essay.

Why?

Because it’s all there.

Everything we need to know as Supervisors is literally in there. It should be required reading for every single one of us. It’s not dense. It’s easy to read. It’s written to the student, which I think is pretty cool. And it is the only document we have that gives us full clarity.

And here’s the thing about the IB...

They mean what they say and they say what they mean.

The entire IB system—nearly 6,000 schools around the world—depends on documentation for it to function. So, the IB is really good at writing documents. And the answers are in the document.

In Closing...

This is an incredible opportunity for professional growth for all of us.

I wish you the best of luck in everything that you do.

I believe, as I said at the start of this series, that this new Extended Essay is a huge step forward.

It makes the Extended Essay more accessible for students and gives them the opportunity to write the kind of essay they really want to write.

And it allows us, as Supervisors, to reward students who write well-written, fluid, and meaningful essays about the topics they care about.

I love this new Extended Essay.

I am excited to see how it plays out, and I would love to hear from you—your thoughts, your impressions. Don’t be shy, just send me an email.

And of course, Kurt and I would love to see you in our Supervisor Training on November 8th. That workshop will take everything we’ve talked about in this five-part series and go deeper. Don't forget about the group discount, and, also, you’ll also get lifetime access to all resources provided in the Workshop. Those resources never go away. Because honestly, why would they? That would be like someone sneaking into your closet two years later and stealing the sweater you bought. Why would that ever happen? That's just stupid, so that'll never happen.

Thank you so much for reading and I am sending you my best from southeastern Europe!

Brad

Book a Custom Training for Your IB Faculty - If your school would like a tailored training on the updated Extended Essay guidelines, we’d love to help—onsite at your campus or live online—just send me an email at [email protected] and we’ll work together to make it happen.

Effectively Supervising the New Extended Essay - November 8th, 2025 - This focused and practical workshop is designed to help teachers confidently navigate the updated Extended Essay framework for the Class of 2027. Together, we’ll explore what’s changed, what’s stayed the same, and how to effectively guide students through both the Subject-Focused and Interdisciplinary pathways.