I was asked if I could share my LinkedIn article here, for colleagues who don’t use LinkedIn. That feels right. This is where I can say things more openly, with more depth, in my own words.
At the start of a new course cycle, my time should really be spent helping teachers and students with the 2027 Visual Arts guide. That’s the work I built Art-Ed Hub for. But I also created this site to be a place where the harder conversations could happen. And right now, this is the conversation we need to have.
Visual Arts is marked more harshly than any other IB subject.
A Pattern We All Know
Every Visual Arts teacher has seen this. At the start of a new syllabus, grades look a little better. A few more 6s and 7s appear. We think maybe things are changing. Then, by the end of the cycle, grade boundaries tighten, grade 7s drop back to 3-4%, and we are left trying to explain to students why their work, work that met or exceeded the descriptors, isn’t being rewarded.
It happened at the end of the 2009 course. It happened again at the end of the 2017 one. Now, with the 2027 guide just beginning, the question is already here: will it happen again?
No matter how well prepared we are as teachers, no matter how carefully we align, our students’ achievements don’t seem to translate into fairer outcomes.
What Students Are Asked To Do
There’s still a huge misunderstanding about what this subject is. Parents, leadership, even other teachers often reduce it to: “but I can’t draw.”
That isn’t Visual Arts.
Our students are asked to:
- Originality: generate ideas that move beyond the obvious, refusing to settle for safe or predictable outcomes – the foundation of innovation in every field.
- Courage: take risks, face failure, and begin again; learning that resilience and adaptability are built by stepping into uncertainty.
- Challenge: question conventions, authority, and assumptions; develop the confidence to confront inherited systems and imagine alternatives.
- Reframe: dismantle and reconstruct, shifting perspectives to see problems in new ways – a skill essential for redesigning outdated models.
- Reinvention: start over without fear, understanding that breakthroughs often emerge from disruption itself.
👉 In Visual Arts, disruption is not destructive; it is transformative. Students discover that tearing something apart can be the beginning of something stronger, more original, and more true.
- Balance: hold intuition and analysis in dialogue, refining ideas through experimentation; the same balance needed for decision-making in complex environments.
- Problem-solving: adapt, pause, or shift direction with imagination, developing the flexibility to respond when situations change unexpectedly.
- Context: engage critically with culture, history, and theory, recognising that no idea exists in isolation; a crucial awareness in today’s interconnected world.
- Critique: present ideas for feedback, listen openly, and refine in dialogue with others; building collaboration, negotiation, and humility.
- Self-awareness: recognise personal strengths, limits, and priorities; knowing what to pursue and what to set aside; a capacity vital for managing workload, wellbeing, and leadership.
- Resolution: bring ideas through the full creative cycle, from exploration to resolved outcomes, developing perseverance and the capacity to complete complex projects.
- Curation: make intentional choices about presentation and context, understanding that meaning changes depending on how ideas are framed; a skill as relevant in design, politics, and business as in the gallery.
- Communication: express complex, personal, and cultural ideas visually, demonstrating that communication is not limited to words.
- Audience: present work publicly, developing confidence to stand by one’s ideas and resilience to receive response; preparation for any future role requiring leadership or advocacy.
- Authenticity: sustain long-term commitment while protecting artistic voice, a rare skill in an age of distraction and conformity.
This is one of the most demanding DP subjects; practically, theoretically, and emotionally. These are not “extras.” They are the traits of creative intelligence, the very things the world needs in an age of AI and constant change.
UNESCO has been clear on this: arts education is central to building the creativity, empathy, and critical capacities needed for 21st-century societies (UNESCO Roadmap for Arts Education, 2006).
And yet, the way the subject is assessed tells students it is worth less than the sciences or economics.
❓ Why should a Visual Arts student have to work disproportionately harder to achieve the same grade as their peers in the sciences or humanities?
❓ Why do grade boundaries seem to penalise rather than reflect the ambition of this course?
Teachers know how demoralising this can be. Year after year, we prepare students for the likelihood that their grades will not reflect their true achievement. It is exhausting to justify this imbalance and to witness students feeling undervalued for the very skills the future most urgently requires.
Wider Ignorance of the Subject
And let’s be honest: it isn’t just the IB. Visual Arts is widely misunderstood and undervalued.
Parents often discourage students because the subject is seen as risky. School leaders treat it as an “add-on.” In some countries, it isn’t even recognised as a valid DP subject.
Take Switzerland, for example. If you want to be an architecture student at ETA in Zurich, IBDP Visual arts is not a recognised subject and you can graduate with no creative training at all. Think about that: a field built on shaping the environments we live in, without space for imagination. No wonder so many of the houses I’ve seen there feel lacking in space and light consideration, are totally rational, and utterly lacking in vision.
This isn’t only my observation. The OECD has highlighted that schools must deliberately foster creativity and critical thinking if education is to stay relevant in the future (OECD Future of Education and Skills 2030). And yet in practice, subjects like Visual Arts, which already do this at the deepest level, remain under-recognised or even sidelined.
When systems fail to value the arts, they starve creativity at the roots.
What About the New Syllabus?
The 2027 guide is exciting. It’s clearer, more structured, more inquiry-led. It gives us a framework that feels right for where education needs to go.
But will a new curriculum change assessment?
- If the same moderation patterns hold, can teachers trust the system?
- If top grades remain rationed, will students see this subject as equal?
- If descriptors are applied more conservatively here than elsewhere, can we really claim parity?
A strong curriculum cannot thrive if the assessment culture beneath it stays the same.
Context Matters
I want to acknowledge the Visual Arts curriculum team. I respect the amount of work that goes into developing a guide. But I also recognise that those involved mostly, if not all, teach in private international schools. That’s a very different context to the realities most of us face. Different resources, different pressures, different outcomes.
When assessment policies are shaped from that perspective, they risk overlooking the challenges of students in other contexts. And that gap matters.
The Questions That Won’t Go Away
So what will the IB do?
- Will they finally align grade distributions fairly with other subjects?
- Will they provide consistent moderation that teachers can trust?
- Will they recognise Visual Arts as the rigorous, transformative course it is, or keep it at the margins?
These questions have been hanging for years. They still haven’t been answered.
Why I’m Writing This Here
This isn’t about criticising individuals. It’s about asking for a system that values students’ work fairly.
I’ve spent decades developing various curricula, running workshops, mentoring teachers. I know the depth of what Visual Arts offers. I also know the despair of watching brilliant work downgraded, of hearing students say they won’t take the subject because “you can’t get the grade.”
Art-Ed Hub was created to support teachers, but also to be a space where truths like this can be said openly.
So yes, I’ll keep saying it: Visual Arts is not a soft subject. It is one of the toughest, most transformative courses in the Diploma. And it deserves to be assessed fairly.
If this resonates with you, share it. Talk about it. Bring it into the open. That’s the only way things change.
🌍 Read my LinkedIn article for the version I shared more publicly.
Because the Arts are not secondary. They are essential.