IB DP Computer Science

Course Information for Students · First class: August 2026 · IB Examinations: May 2028

This page tells you what the course is, what you will learn, how you will be assessed, and what will be expected of you across the next two years. Details will be updated as the IB releases new materials, but everything here reflects the current official syllabus. Dates follow the 2026–2027 school calendar and may change if the calendar does.

What this course is

Computer Science in the IB Diploma Programme is a problem-solving course. You will learn how computers actually work, from logic gates and CPU architecture up through networks, databases, and machine learning, and you will spend a large part of every week writing real programs that solve real problems. The organizing idea of the whole course is computational thinking: taking a messy problem, breaking it down, finding the pattern, designing an algorithm, and testing whether your solution actually works.

You are joining the course at an interesting moment. The IB rebuilt Computer Science from the ground up starting in 2025, and you will be only the second cohort in the world to sit the new exams. The new course is more modern than the old one: machine learning, databases, and object-oriented programming are now part of the core for every student, and exams are answered in a real programming language rather than pseudocode.

Computer Science counts as a Group 4 (Sciences) subject in your Diploma.

Standard Level and Higher Level

Both levels cover the same foundation: computational thinking, programming, computer hardware, networks, databases, machine learning, a research case study, and a major independent programming project. Higher Level goes further in both breadth and depth: HL students study additional topics inside every unit (for example CPU pipelining, network routing, database transactions, and a much fuller treatment of machine learning), plus one entire extra unit on advanced data structures (linked lists, binary search trees, hash tables). HL exams are longer and the HL case study requires deeper independent research.

You do not need any programming background for SL; the course assumes nothing and past students have succeeded starting from zero. For HL, some previous exposure to programming helps, and the IB’s own guidance is that students who enjoy mathematical problem-solving are well suited to it. HL Computer Science is a strong foundation if you are considering computer science, engineering, or related fields at university.

What you will learn

The syllabus has two themes.

Theme A: Concepts of computer science. How computing systems work.

• A1 Computer fundamentals: CPU architecture, memory, binary and hexadecimal, logic gates and circuits, operating systems, cloud computing. (HL adds: compilers vs interpreters, control systems, pipelining.)
• A2 Networks: how the internet works, network hardware, protocols like TCP/IP and HTTPS, IP addressing, packet switching, and network security including encryption and firewalls. (HL adds: routing, server types, vulnerabilities and countermeasures.)
• A3 Databases: how organizations store data, database design and normalization, and hands-on SQL, the language used to query databases everywhere. (HL adds: transactions, views, NoSQL and data warehouses.)
• A4 Machine learning: what ML actually is, the main types of learning, hardware for AI, and the ethics of algorithmic decision-making. (HL adds a full unit: regression, classification, clustering, neural networks, and how models are evaluated.)

Theme B: Computational thinking and problem-solving. Using computers to solve problems.

• B1 Computational thinking: problem specification, decomposition, abstraction, flowcharts, tracing algorithms by hand.
• B2 Programming: the biggest unit in the course. Variables, selection, loops, functions, strings, arrays and lists, stacks and queues, searching and sorting algorithms, algorithm efficiency (Big O), file handling, debugging, and exception handling.
• B3 Object-oriented programming: designing programs with classes and objects, the way almost all professional software is built. (HL adds: inheritance, polymorphism, design patterns.)
• B4 Abstract data types (HL only): linked lists, binary search trees, sets, and hash tables.

The programming language. The new syllabus is taught and examined in either Java or Python, chosen by the school for the whole class; exam papers are printed in both versions and you answer in ours. Our class will use Python. You will write Python constantly, on the computer and, just as importantly, by hand on paper, because that is how the exam works.

How you are assessed by the IB

Your final grade (1–7) comes from three components.

A useful rule you will hear constantly: exams award roughly 1.5 minutes per mark. Time discipline is a skill we will train, not something to discover in May 2028.

The case study (part of Paper 1)

About a year before your exams, the IB publishes a short booklet describing a real-world computing scenario built around an emerging technology. Yours will be released around May 2027, at the end of Year 1. You bring a clean copy into Paper 1, and the final section of that paper asks questions about it, ending in an extended “To what extent…” question that rewards genuine independent research done during Year 2. We will work on the case study a little every week in Year 2 rather than cramming it, because the students who score highest on this section are the ones who know the booklet’s world inside out: its vocabulary, its technology, and real systems similar to it.

For reference, the IB’s specimen case study concerned network security at a hospital, and the whole of the specimen Paper 1 was set in that same world. Expect your Paper 1 to live inside your case study’s domain in the same way.

The Internal Assessment: your computational solution

The IA is the single largest piece of work you will produce in this course, and it is worth up to 30% of your grade before you ever sit an exam. You choose a real problem that genuinely interests you, and you design, build, test, and evaluate a working software solution to it over 35 hours of dedicated time. There is no required client; the problem is yours to pick, though it must be substantial enough to need real algorithms, data structures, and design.

You submit three things: a written report of at most 2,000 words structured around five criteria (Problem specification, Planning, System overview, Development, Evaluation), a video of at most 5 minutes demonstrating that your program works and showing how you tested it, and appendices containing your full code. Your teacher marks it against IB criteria and the IB moderates the marking externally.

The IA succeeds or fails at the beginning: the success criteria you write in your problem specification are reused in your planning, justified in your development, and measured in your evaluation. We will therefore spend real class time getting your specification right before you write a line of the final product.

The two-year journey

Year 1 (2026–2027): Foundations

Semester 1 (Aug 19 – Jan 15). You learn to program, properly. We start with computational thinking and flowcharts, then build through Python fundamentals: variables, decisions, loops, functions, strings, lists, stacks and queues, searching and sorting, algorithm efficiency, and file handling. In December we shift to data representation: binary, hexadecimal, and logic circuits.

• Midterm 1 (week of Oct 26): a mini Paper 2, handwritten code and algorithm tracing.
• Final Exam 1 (week of Jan 4): two sittings, one in Paper 2 style covering all programming, one in Paper 1 style covering theory, both at real IB timing density.

Semester 2 (Jan 19 – Jun 17). Computer hardware and operating systems, then object-oriented programming, then networks and network security.

• Midterm 2 (week of Apr 6): Paper 1 style on computer fundamentals plus Paper 2 style on OOP and maintained programming skills.
• April–June: the IA launches. You will explore problem ideas, conference individually with me, and finish the year with a signed-off problem specification.
• Final Exam 2 (week of May 31): a full exam rehearsal at SL timing for everyone, both papers.
• June: your case study booklet should arrive from the IB; we begin reading it together.

Summer 2027 (required, and designed to be light). Three things: build a rough prototype of the riskiest part of your IA so surprises surface in August rather than November; read your case study booklet and build a personal glossary of every technical term in it; and complete one programming problem set so your Paper 2 skills don’t rust. Students who keep programming over this summer are consistently the ones who find Year 2 comfortable.

Year 2 (2027–2028): Depth, the IA, and the exams

Semester 1. New content continues (databases and SQL, machine learning, and for HL: advanced OOP and abstract data types) while two standing weekly slots run all semester: one period for supervised IA development and one for the case study. Fixed IA checkpoints: planning and system overview signed off by early October, a working product and full draft report before winter break. The end-of-semester final is a full mock exam: complete Papers 1 and 2 at your level’s real timing, marked with real IB markschemes, graded against real boundaries.

• By this autumn, the first cohort’s actual exam papers (May 2027) will have been published, and our practice materials will be built from them.

Semester 2. Final IA submission in mid-February 2028, deliberately early so it never collides with revision. Then a structured revision program: topic circuits, timed past-paper sections, a second full mock, case study intensives, and individual targeting based on your personal error log. IB examinations in May 2028.

How this class runs, week to week

These routines exist because they are what separates knowing the material from scoring highly on it.

Handwritten Fridays. From about week six, one exam-style question every week, on paper, timed, marked against a real markscheme. Writing correct code by hand under time pressure is a genuine skill, it is exactly what Paper 2 demands, and nobody arrives with it. By exam time you will have done it roughly sixty times.

Command terms matter. IB questions use precise verbs: State wants one fact, Outline wants a brief account, Explain wants reasons, Discuss and Evaluate want balanced argument. Answering an “Explain” question with a description loses marks every single time. You will get a command-term glossary in week one and we will use it constantly.

No naked nouns. IB markschemes overwhelmingly award one mark for identifying a point and a second for expanding it. “Reputational damage” earns one mark; “reputational damage, so patients lose confidence and take their business elsewhere” earns two. Every point you make gets its consequence clause.

Trace tables everywhere. Tracing an algorithm by hand, line by line, variable by variable, is both an examined skill and the best way to truly understand code. Every algorithm we learn gets traced before it gets typed.

Markscheme literacy. After every assessment you will mark answers (your own or a peer’s) against the official-style markscheme before you see your grade. Students who can think like a markscheme learn to write like one.

Error logs. You will keep a running log of every mark you lose all year: the question, the error, the fix. In spring 2028 your revision will be built from your own log, not from generic review. This is the difference between revising and revising your weaknesses.

Programming never stops. Even during theory units, at least one period a week stays hands-on. Paper 2 fluency is built by continuous practice and decays without it.

What earning a 7 actually requires

Being honest with you from day one: the top grades in this subject go to students who do four things consistently. They program constantly, including by hand. They answer the question that was asked, with the depth its command term demands. They treat the IA as a marathon run early, hitting every checkpoint, because 20–30% of the grade is settled before exam season begins. And in Year 2 they do real independent research on the case study instead of relying on the booklet alone, because the top band of the case study essay explicitly rewards research beyond it. None of these requires genius. All of them require starting in August 2026 rather than January 2028.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to be good at math? The course draws on logical thinking more than calculation. There is no calculus; there is binary arithmetic, Boolean logic, and algorithm analysis. HL suits students who enjoy mathematical problem-solving.

I have never programmed. Am I behind? No. The course is designed to start from zero, and Semester 1 exists to build everyone to the same fluency. Curiosity and consistent practice matter far more than prior experience.

Can I use AI tools? The IB has strict academic integrity rules, especially for the IA, where all work must be your own and any tool use must be declared and cited. We will go through the exact policy in class before the IA launches. On exams you will have nothing but your own mind and a pen, which is precisely why our routines train you that way.

What about the Group 4 collaborative sciences project? As a science subject, CS participates in the school-wide interdisciplinary science project. Details will come from the school’s scheduling.

What computer do I need? School machines cover everything we do. If you have your own laptop, we will set up Python and the tools we use in the first week; everything is free and runs locally.

Where can I see real exam questions? The IB’s official specimen papers for this syllabus exist and our internal exams are built in their exact format, so every midterm and final you sit here is also a preview of May 2028.

Page last updated July 2026. Assessment details reflect the current IB Computer Science guide (first assessment 2027); school dates follow the published 2026–2027 calendar and are subject to change.