FirstHandIB Terms & Conditions

FirstHandIB is an independent educational platform designed to support students studying the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme.

FirstHandIB is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, approved by, or otherwise associated with the International Baccalaureate Organization (IB). Any references to the IB, the IB Diploma Programme, IB subjects or related terminology are used solely to describe the educational context for which FirstHandIB is designed.

FirstHandIB is independently developed and operated by RevAce, Germany.

The platform is currently under development. If you are participating in an Free Preview or Design Preview, you are accessing an unfinished version of the platform for testing and feedback purposes. Features, content, functionality and availability may change as FirstHandIB is developed.

Access to FirstHandIB is provided for your personal educational use only.

Where you receive an account, access code, generated username or other access credentials, these are intended for your own use.

You may not sell, transfer, publish or deliberately share your account, access code or other access credentials with another person unless FirstHandIB explicitly permits this.

You are responsible for using your access appropriately.

FirstHandIB may restrict or terminate access where the platform is deliberately misused or these Terms are materially violated.

Unless otherwise stated, the original content and materials made available through FirstHandIB are owned by FirstHandIB, operated by RevAce, or are used under an appropriate licence or other legal basis.

This includes, where applicable:

• written lessons and explanations
• teaching videos and scripts
• original diagrams, illustrations and graphics
• questions, exercises and activities
• case study materials created by FirstHandIB
• feedback and answer explanations
• lesson structures and original learning materials
• flashcards and drills
• downloadable resources created by FirstHandIB
• original website elements and other platform materials

Access to FirstHandIB gives you permission to use the platform in accordance with these Terms. It does not transfer ownership of FirstHandIB content to you.

You may use FirstHandIB and its content for your own personal learning and study.

Unless FirstHandIB expressly allows it, you may not:

• reproduce or systematically copy FirstHandIB content
• download or extract substantial amounts of platform content
• share restricted FirstHandIB learning materials with people who do not have access
• upload FirstHandIB materials to another website, platform, shared drive, repository or similar service
• republish FirstHandIB content
• sell, resell, sublicense or commercially distribute FirstHandIB content
• use FirstHandIB content to create or sell another educational product or service
• remove copyright, ownership or attribution notices
• systematically scrape, crawl or extract content from the platform
• use automated systems to reproduce or collect substantial amounts of FirstHandIB content
• record, screenshot or otherwise reproduce substantial amounts of restricted FirstHandIB content for the purpose of distributing it to others
• deliberately enable another person to avoid FirstHandIB's access restrictions

These restrictions do not limit any use that is expressly permitted by applicable law.

Some users may be invited to participate in an Free Preview or Design Preview of FirstHandIB.

Preview users may see educational content, functionality, designs and features that are incomplete, experimental or have not yet been publicly released.

If you participate in a preview, please do not distribute preview access codes or deliberately provide people outside the preview with access to restricted preview content.

You are encouraged to explore the platform, test different learning methods and provide critical feedback about your experience.

The purpose of the preview is to help FirstHandIB understand how students actually use the platform and how it should be improved before wider release.

Students entering through a designated preview access method, such as the ESS-Preview code, may receive a randomly generated username or preview identifier rather than being required to create an account using their real name.

This identifier may be used to associate activity within the platform with the same preview user or session.

A generated username or identifier should not be interpreted as a guarantee that all information processed by the platform is legally anonymous. Further information about the information FirstHandIB processes and how it is used is provided in the Privacy Policy.

During the Free Preview and during normal use of FirstHandIB, you may have opportunities to provide feedback.

This may include:

• Start, Stop, Continue feedback
• suggestions
• comments
• ratings
• survey responses
• bug reports
• feedback about individual lessons, questions or learning components

By voluntarily submitting feedback, you allow FirstHandIB to use that feedback for the purpose of evaluating, improving and developing the platform, its functionality and its educational content.

Feedback may be analysed together with contextual information about where in the platform it was submitted where this is described in the Privacy Policy.

Please do not include unnecessary personal information about yourself or another person in free-text feedback.

FirstHandIB may collect information about how users interact with the platform in order to understand the learning experience, evaluate product design, identify technical problems and improve FirstHandIB.

Depending on the version of the platform being used, this may include interactions such as:

• lessons or topics opened
• learning components viewed
• videos started or completed
• questions attempted
• whether answers were correct or incorrect
• learning content skipped or revisited
• navigation through the lesson tree
• use of hints or feedback
• progress through lessons
• feedback or bug reports submitted
• session and interaction information

For Free Preview users, these interactions may be associated with a generated preview identifier so that FirstHandIB can understand a user's journey through the platform without requiring their real name for that purpose.

The exact personal data processed, purposes of processing, applicable legal bases, retention periods and user rights are explained separately in the FirstHandIB Privacy Policy.

FirstHandIB is intended to support learning and does not replace teaching, official course materials or individual academic guidance.

We aim to make FirstHandIB content accurate, useful and relevant to the subjects it covers. However, particularly during an Free Preview, content may contain errors, omissions or unfinished material.

FirstHandIB does not guarantee that all educational content is complete or error-free.

Students remain responsible for their own schoolwork, assessments, examination preparation and compliance with the rules of their school and examination programme.

FirstHandIB does not guarantee particular grades, examination results, university admissions or other academic outcomes.

FirstHandIB is an independent platform and currently has no affiliation or partnership with the International Baccalaureate Organization.

FirstHandIB is not endorsed, sponsored, approved or operated by the International Baccalaureate Organization.

"International Baccalaureate", "IB" and related names, trademarks and materials belong to their respective rights holders.

References to the IB, the IB Diploma Programme, ESS, IB subjects, examinations or related terminology are intended to describe the educational context and audience for FirstHandIB and should not be interpreted as suggesting an official relationship with the International Baccalaureate Organization.

Where FirstHandIB uses or links to third-party content or resources, the rights relating to those materials remain with their respective owners.

You agree not to use FirstHandIB in a way that:

• interferes with the normal operation or security of the platform
• attempts to gain unauthorised access to another user's account, administrative functions or restricted areas
• deliberately attempts to bypass access restrictions
• introduces malicious software, code or other harmful material
• uses automated tools to systematically extract restricted platform content
• attempts to interfere with or manipulate platform analytics or feedback systems
• infringes the intellectual property or other rights of FirstHandIB or another person
• violates applicable law

FirstHandIB is under active development.

We may add, remove, modify or test features, learning materials, questions and other functionality.

During an Free Preview in particular, parts of FirstHandIB may contain bugs, be incomplete, change without notice or temporarily become unavailable.

We may also update these Terms as FirstHandIB develops or where legal or operational requirements change.

Where appropriate, users will be informed of material changes.

FirstHandIB may suspend or terminate access where reasonably necessary, including where a user seriously or repeatedly violates these Terms, compromises platform security, unlawfully distributes protected content or deliberately provides unauthorised access to other people.

Any mandatory rights you have under applicable law remain unaffected.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability where doing so would not be permitted under applicable law.

FirstHandIB is an educational support resource and does not replace professional teaching, official examination materials or individual educational advice.

In particular, FirstHandIB does not guarantee particular academic results or outcomes from using the platform.

The processing of personal data in connection with FirstHandIB is explained separately in the FirstHandIB Privacy Policy.

The Privacy Policy explains, among other things, what information may be collected, why it is processed, how long it may be retained and what rights users have regarding their personal data.

Users should be provided with access to the Privacy Policy before using the platform.

If you have questions about these Terms, FirstHandIB, your access to the platform or the use of FirstHandIB content, please contact:

Email: lynette@firsthandib.com

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany.

If you are a consumer, any mandatory consumer protection rights and other mandatory legal protections applicable to you remain unaffected.

FirstHandIB offers paid packages (Investigate, Review and Master). Each package is a one-time payment, not a subscription.

• Investigate: access to the IA course and one live 45-minute IA review call with Lynette, plus written notes afterwards.
• Review and Master: access until your ESS exam, meaning the ESS Paper 2 day of the exam session you choose at purchase (for example 3 May 2027 for the May 2027 session). If the IB has not yet published the timetable for your session, access runs until 10 May (May sessions) or 10 November (November sessions) and is adjusted to the actual Paper 2 date once published.
• Review: Last Minute (November 2026 session): access until 2 November 2026.

Access is personal and non-transferable. You may not share your account or resell access.

If you are under 18, please get permission from a parent or guardian before purchasing.

The IA review is a separately scheduled live online session: a 45-minute video call with Lynette in which we go through your ESS Internal Assessment draft together against the IB ESS assessment criteria, followed by short written notes. You book the call yourself and upload your draft at least 3 days before it. All recorded course content (videos, lessons and exercises) remains self-study and is not live tuition.

We do not write, edit or rewrite any part of your IA. All work must remain your own, in line with IB academic integrity rules.

Our order process is conducted by our online reseller Paddle.com. Paddle.com is the Merchant of Record for all our orders. Paddle provides all customer service inquiries and handles returns.

Refunds and withdrawal rights are described in our Refund Policy.