1. QuickStart Guide for Account Setup
- The guide above provides an overview of ManageBac account setup and maintenance for the Primary Years Programme, covering Classes, Standards, Units, Resources, Portfolio and Assessment.
- The steps should be completed by an Administrator user, generally your IB PYP Coordinator and/or Tech Director.
- Following on below is a feature overview of ManageBac for the IB Primary Years Programmes, to make sure you get the most out of ManageBac!
2. Feature Overview: Managing the IB Primary Years with ManageBac
Redesigned from the ground up for the IB Primary Years Programme.
- The only learning platform supporting the full IB Continuum and designed with the new Standards & Practices in mind
- Collaboratively plan in real-time with integrated Student Portfolios, Assessment and Reporting
- Flexible unit template editor and enhanced reflections designed from the ground up for the new PYP
- Worksheets for Service Learning and Project-Based Learning allow students to plan, record and reflect upon action as a dynamic outcome of agency
Portfolio
Students gradually build a digital portfolio over time as they submit coursework into their classes for individual assessments.
- Track Progress
- Track the progression of a student’s learner profile attributes and ATLs through their learning goals and submitted work
- Centralise Coursework
- All submitted work is automatically grouped into subjects with learning goals
- Export Locally
- Portfolios can be exported as PDFs or synced to our partners when taking the next step in your students’ learning journey
Remote Learning
Bring your curriculum to life with a unified remote learning platform on ManageBac with built-in Zoom, AssessPrep, and KeyChat integrations.
Design
Three pillars supported by PD & best practices:
- Teaching & Learning
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Seamless Online Lesson delivery with Zoom and Presentation Mode
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Communication
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Whole-school communication with KeyChat
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Engagement
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Engagement analytics and automated reminders with weekly digests
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KeyChat
- Centralise Whole-School Communication
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Designed to directly address the needs of PYP Educators, and adapted to facilitate Remote Learning. Channel membership is provisioned and managed automatically based on Class & Year group enrolment as well as Teacher & Advisor relationships
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Improve Collaboration for Remote Learning
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KeyChat connects your learning community to support staff communication, school administration, and teaching & advisory relationships (e.g. homeroom teachers with specialist teachers, SL Advisors)
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Provide Social & Emotional Support
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Allow students to express themselves to their classmates and advisors by sharing how they are feeling via text or through the use of emojis
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Enhance School-to-Home Communication
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Streamline Parent communications to provide a Unified Family Experience
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AssessPrep
- Online Exams
- Securely manage remote examinations
- Provides accurate and easy-to read answers which allows for faster grading
- Choose your exam delivery method and take advantage of powerful analytics
- Criteria or Points-Based Assessment
- Live Invigilation
- Deliver assessments within a live, synchronous online lesson
- Ability to monitor the students visually during remote testing using online meeting platforms
- Flipped Classroom
- Assign assessments for students to complete asynchronously
Online Lesson & Presentation Mode
Schedule your virtual lesson using your video conferencing tool or take advantage of our built-in Zoom integration. Start the lesson with one click from your calendar or your unit’s Stream.
Online Events & Meetings
The same Zoom integration that is allowing for Online Lessons to be created and linked to Zoom is now enabled for Calendar > Events. Add a new Event to the Calendar using the Add Event button to see the updated Event interface with Create Zoom Meeting button. Events differentiated for different students will show and allow only linked students to join the Zoom call.
Curriculum
Improved unit flexibility, real-time collaboration and online presence for managing the IB Primary Years Programme (IB PYP).
- Collaborative Curriculum Planning
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Collaboratively create, edit and share unit planners across year levels in real-time
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Ready-to-Go
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Built-in with transdisciplinary themes, key concepts, ATL skills and more
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See the Big Picture
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Browse whole-school curriculum and analytics to track coverage of concepts and skills, and automatically generate your Programme of Inquiry
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Resources
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Embed notes, files, photos, videos and websites with our drag & drop Stream & Resources
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Redesigned Primary Years Programme Unit Planners
With a host of improvements for your Early Years, Standard and Specialist (stand-alone) Planner templates.
Academic Standards & Curriculum Updates
We have added over 607 sets of academic & accreditation standards and benchmarks for our schools comprising the world’s largest indexed collection of over 1.5 million fully-licensed academic standards.
Programme Standards & Practices
Built-in planner guidance and IB Evaluation support.
Streamline the IB Evaluation process by tagging evidence as you go! Link Portfolio items, Reflections and Tasks to specific practices to generate a rich bank of evidence centred around student learning experiences and outcomes.
To support schools in the transition to the new IB Standards and Practices, we are providing planner guidance direct from the IB, including how each section of the template aligns with the IB Standards and Practices. This embedded PD will keep the IB philosophy at the heart of teacher planning and collaboration at your school, driving a culture of continuous reflection and improvement.
For more information on the new IB Standards and Practices, read our blog.
Teaching & Learning
With a unique Curriculum-First approach & design, ManageBac supports effective implementation of the IB PYP Programme:
- When you create a class, you choose from authorised subjects, which allows teachers to collaboratively share curriculum, resources, tasks, and assignments effortlessly
- ManageBac allows for customisable standards according to Year Groups or Phases to allow for differentiation across units, resources and assessment tasks
- When a curriculum review occurs, curriculum changes are automatic, saving schools countless hours each year and ensuring that curricula is accurate & up-to-date
- Transition years, when curriculum reviews go into effect, are managed seamlessly, e.g. PYP Year 4 would be on a new subject guide, while PYP Year 5 would be on the old subject guide
Classes
Staff can view events, tasks, deadlines, exams, and entire calendars by year group, individual class or activity group (i.e. Basketball Club). Students also have access to their own calendar, which is populated with their assignments and activities, and updated in real-time.
Tasks
Create summative and formative tasks linked to units, custom categories, and resources with support for differentiation. Support for task-specific clarification of assessment criteria. Allow for student uploads and plagiarism checking with our Turnitin integration. Supported file types Websites or Videos, GDocs, Files (PDF, PPT, DOC, TXT), Photos or Text Notes.
Messages
Communicate with year groups, teachers, and individual students to provide feedback, suggestions, and add clarity about tasks and assignments. Parents using ManageBac can also receive messages about their students performance alerting them to potential issues as they happen.
Calendar
As a teacher or administrator you can view assignment deadlines, exams, and entire class calendars by year, group (such as Basketball or Drama Club), or by individual class. Students also get a real-time view of their term as calendar items are synced as soon as they are added by their instructors.
Attendance
Teachers record class attendance based on the configured preferences (i.e. weekdays and rotation-based, categories, days off). Admins can manage attendance by student, class, or curriculum and set daily digests, send reminders to teachers, and absences to parents. Parents can also submit attendance excusals through ManageBac.
Assessment & Reporting
Tailored for the unique needs of international schools, our systems provide built-in IB Curriculum support and country-specific assessment requirements, all wrapped into a sleek, mobile-ready and easy to use interface.
Gradebook
Submit individual task and term assessments by points and anecdotal feedback with customised category weightings and grade boundaries. Create term rubrics for all or specific subjects, and automatically convert to local grades. Administrators can track in real-time the progress of term grade submissions by subject or student.
Google Docs
In less than 3 clicks, teachers can link, assign, and distribute a Google Doc template to their entire class. For students, this provides one-click access to their GDocs editor with the coursework template pre-loaded, and automatically saves the submitted GDoc to their portfolio with all marks and annotations preserved for future reference.
Turnitin
Our Turnitin integration allows student coursework to be automatically submitted through Turnitin prior to grading in order to improve student writing, empower original thinking, and prevent plagiarism. Access all Feedback Studio features directly from within ManageBac.
Annotations
Vantage Reader is a built-in tool for all marking and annotation of submitted coursework. Designed to be collaborative, multiple authors can comment and annotate individual assignments in parallel - Just like in Google Docs.
Report Cards
Report cards can include a customisable cover letter with signature, learner profile, ATL skills evaluation, overall progress including homeroom advisory comments and attendance, extra-curricular activities and final grade descriptions. Generate reports individually or in bulk as print-ready PDFs which can also be distributed to securely to parents and students online with optional email notifications.
ManageBac for Mobile
For Students, Parents, Teachers, and Coordinators
The new ManageBac mobile app supports all user types including students, parents, teachers, coordinators, and admins across all curriculum programmes with an improved experience on tablet & phone for all key functions: taking attendance, classroom management, messaging, managing SA and project requirements.
School-to-Home
Provide students & families with a consistent, modern and intuitive user experience from initial inquiry to enrolment and school life & beyond.
- Teaching & Learning
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Our core teaching and learning offering improves the classroom experience for teachers and students with curriculum planning, assessment and reporting and academic management
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Admissions & Enrolment
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OpenApply, our School Admissions Management System is integrated with ManageBac and supports your entire family throughout the admissions and enrolment process. Streamline family information updates, confirm re-enrolment, and complete the application process for siblings all in one place
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Communications
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Streamlined communications & notifications support the school-to-home experience as well as increase student and teacher engagement
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SchoolsBuddy
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Our Extra-Curricular and Activities Management System, is integrated with ManageBac and allows schools to easily book & manage activities and parent-teacher conferences alongside an advanced payments solution supporting student life beyond the classroom
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