The philosophy at the heart of the Primary Years Prorgram (PYP) is a commitment to structured inquiry as an ideal approach to learning. Teachers and students are guided by a series of basic questions as they design curricular units for exploration and study. Ideas of local and global significance reveal concerns shared by people of all nations.

Learner Profile:        Principled, Caring, Reflective, Open-Minded, Knowledgeable, Risk Taker, Inquirer, Balanced, Communicator, Thinker Ask your child about these and see how they feel about their own learning with respect to the profiles!

The Five Essential Elements

 The program has five essential elements: concepts, skills, attitudes, actions, and knowledge.

• Concepts - Key concepts are expressed as questions that propel the process of inquiry - How does it work? What is it like? How is it connected to other things?
• Skills - Sets of cross-curricular skills - reading, reasoning, researching, communicating - are acquired in the process of structured inquiry.
• Attitudes - The program as a whole promotes and fosters respect, tolerance, integrity, and confidence.
• Actions - Students are encouraged to reflect, to choose wisely, and to act responsibly with their peers and teachers as well as in the wider community.
• Knowledge-The program identifies a body of significant knowledge in six principal areas: languages; social studies; science and technology; mathematics; arts; personal, social, and physical education.

The Curriculum Framework

The PYP offers a comprehensive, inquiry-based approach to teaching and learning. It provides an internationally designed model for the learner to construct meaning and incorporates guidelines on student learning styles, teaching methodologies and assessment strategies. The curriculum framework is an expression and an extension of three inter-related questions:

• What do we want to learn?
• How best will we learn?
• How will we know what we have learned?

The five essential elements are developed and applied in a context defined by six organizing themes:

Who we are?

Where we are in place and time?

How we express ourselves?

How the world works ?

How we organize ourselves?

Sharing the planet

The Importance of the POI

IB provides a structured approach to collaborative preparation  in the form of unit planners designed to assist teachers in the organization of  units of inquiry.  All of these planners used throughout a school and across all grade levels are then organized according to their themes and combined into what is referred to as the POI,  or program of inquiry, of the  school.

IBO mission statement

The International Baccalaureate Organization aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.

To this end the IBO works with schools, governments and international organizations to develop challenging programmes of international education and rigorous assessment.

These programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.

Assessment in the IBPYP Program

Teachers and students from the school assess student work. There are two types of assessment:

Formative- This is interwoven with daily learning and helps teachers and students find out what the students already know in order to plan the next stage of learning. Formative assessment and teaching are directly linked; neither can function effectively without the other.

Summative- This happens at the end of the teaching and learning process. It provides the students with opportunities to demonstrate what they have learned.