IB Primary Years Programme (PYP)
The Primary Years Programme (PYP) offers a comprehensive approach to teaching and learning. It provides an inquiry-based curriculum model that incorporates guidelines on what students should learn, how students should act as learners and as community members, on teaching methodologies and on assessment strategies
Inquiry Based Learning
The PYP is a guided inquiry approach to learning and teaching. Inquiry-based units of study, known as Units of Inquiry, are the focus for learning in homeroom classes and when appropriate they are integrated into other curriculum areas. Students experience what it is like to think and act like a historian, scientist, engineer or a mathematician. Within each Unit of Inquiry, students and teachers identify together what they want to know, what they already know, what they need to know and how best they might find that out.
In the inquiry-based classroom there is emphasis on real life situations, decision-making, problem solving, research and action. Students are actively:
In the inquiry-based classroom there is emphasis on real life situations, decision-making, problem solving, research and action. Students are actively:
- Exploring, wondering and questioning.
- Experimenting and playing with possibilities.
- Researching and seeking information.
- Collecting data and reporting findings.
- Clarifying existing ideas and reappraising events.
- Deepening understanding through the application of a concept or rule.
- Making and testing theories.
- Making predictions and acting purposefully to see what happens.
- Elaborating on solutions to problems.
Essential Elements of the IB PYP
1. Concepts: What do we want students to understand?
The PYP is a curriculum framework that has been designed around a key set of important ideas or concepts that provide the foundation for exploration across all disciplines. The concepts are:
2. Knowledge: What do we want students to know?
Knowledge in the PYP is developed through six Units of Inquiry in each grade level under the headings of six transdisciplinary themes. These themes are used to integrate subject knowledge across the main curriculum areas of: languages, mathematics, social studies, science and technology, the arts, personal, physical and social education (PPSE). The Units of Inquiry are significant for all students, give them opportunities to explore challenging, relevant and engaging knowledge, encourage knowledge to be looked at in a transdisciplinary way, and can be revisited throughout the student's years of schooling.
The International Baccalaureate® (IB) Primary Years Programme (PYP) is underpinned by six transdisciplinary themes around which learning is planned.
These are:
These themes are selected for their relevance to the real world. They are described as transdisciplinary because they focus on issues that go across subject areas.
The transdisciplinary themes help teachers to develop a programme of inquiry. Teachers work together to develop investigations into important ideas, which require a substantial and high level of involvement on the part of students. Through the PYP curriculum framework, schools ensure that students examine each theme.
3. Skills: What do we want the students to be able to do?
Skills are those things that students need to be able to do to succeed in a changing challenging world. Students need to master a range of skills to prepare themselves for their future education and for life in general. A comprehensive set of social skills, research skills, thinking skills, communication skills, and self-management skills are taught through structured inquiry experiences in the Units of Inquiry.
4. Attitudes: What do we want the students to value and feel?
It is important that students recognize the importance of attitudes as an integral part of the curriculum. The PYP promotes: tolerance, respect, integrity, independence, enthusiasm, empathy, curiosity, creativity, co-operation, confidence, commitment and appreciation. There are many opportunities throughout the curriculum to develop and promote positive attitudes.
5. Action: How do we want students to act?
Through the Units of Inquiry we endeavor to create learning experiences which inspire students to actively apply new learning in their daily life. Students are encouraged to reflect, to choose wisely and to act responsibly with their peers, school staff and in the wider community.
The PYP is a curriculum framework that has been designed around a key set of important ideas or concepts that provide the foundation for exploration across all disciplines. The concepts are:
- Form: What is it like?
- Function: How does it work?
- Causation: Why is it like it is?
- Change: How is it changing?
- Connection: How is it connected to other things?
- Perspective: What are the points of view?
- Responsibility: What is our responsibility?
- Reflection: How do we know?
2. Knowledge: What do we want students to know?
Knowledge in the PYP is developed through six Units of Inquiry in each grade level under the headings of six transdisciplinary themes. These themes are used to integrate subject knowledge across the main curriculum areas of: languages, mathematics, social studies, science and technology, the arts, personal, physical and social education (PPSE). The Units of Inquiry are significant for all students, give them opportunities to explore challenging, relevant and engaging knowledge, encourage knowledge to be looked at in a transdisciplinary way, and can be revisited throughout the student's years of schooling.
The International Baccalaureate® (IB) Primary Years Programme (PYP) is underpinned by six transdisciplinary themes around which learning is planned.
These are:
- 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.
These themes are selected for their relevance to the real world. They are described as transdisciplinary because they focus on issues that go across subject areas.
The transdisciplinary themes help teachers to develop a programme of inquiry. Teachers work together to develop investigations into important ideas, which require a substantial and high level of involvement on the part of students. Through the PYP curriculum framework, schools ensure that students examine each theme.
3. Skills: What do we want the students to be able to do?
Skills are those things that students need to be able to do to succeed in a changing challenging world. Students need to master a range of skills to prepare themselves for their future education and for life in general. A comprehensive set of social skills, research skills, thinking skills, communication skills, and self-management skills are taught through structured inquiry experiences in the Units of Inquiry.
4. Attitudes: What do we want the students to value and feel?
It is important that students recognize the importance of attitudes as an integral part of the curriculum. The PYP promotes: tolerance, respect, integrity, independence, enthusiasm, empathy, curiosity, creativity, co-operation, confidence, commitment and appreciation. There are many opportunities throughout the curriculum to develop and promote positive attitudes.
5. Action: How do we want students to act?
Through the Units of Inquiry we endeavor to create learning experiences which inspire students to actively apply new learning in their daily life. Students are encouraged to reflect, to choose wisely and to act responsibly with their peers, school staff and in the wider community.
The IB PYP Exhibition
Students in grade 5 at DISK carry out an extended, collaborative inquiry process, known as the Exhibition, under the guidance of their teachers and mentors. The Exhibition is the culmination of the Primary Years Program. Students synthesize the essential elements of the PYP and share them with the whole school community. It is an opportunity for students to exhibit the attributes of the IB Learner Profile that they have developed throughout their engagement with the program.
Students are given flexibility in their choice of real-life issues or problems to be explored and investigated in the Exhibition. The central idea states a broad conceptual understanding that the students will investigate. Students work together with their teacher to focus their inquiry. They explore the local and global issues related to that inquiry, and then prepare a presentation for the community to view.
Students are given flexibility in their choice of real-life issues or problems to be explored and investigated in the Exhibition. The central idea states a broad conceptual understanding that the students will investigate. Students work together with their teacher to focus their inquiry. They explore the local and global issues related to that inquiry, and then prepare a presentation for the community to view.
