IB Primary Years Programme
Daniel Cullinan
PYP Coordinator and Head of School
pypcoordinator@thegivingtreeschool.edu.kh
One of the questions that parents often ask about the PYP is that if there are no textbooks to follow, how do you know what to teach? This is a complex question that really requires a much longer and more detailed explanation, preferably with examples, than we have room for here. So, until parents are allowed back on campus for a more detailed information session, I will do my best to explain here.
The PYP has a set of curriculum documents to guide teachers called scope and sequence documents, which many different national curricula have around the world. These scope and sequences documents outline the areas of learning and map them in a developmentally sequential way. These are used as the long-term planning for teachers which they map over an academic year.
When teachers begin with a new unit of inquiry or a new maths focus, for example, these documents are where they start. The learning objectives are identified and linked across different disciplines where there is an authentic integration to help support the transdisciplinary approach to learning. This is what we call a medium-term plan which covers around 6 to 8 weeks depending on how large the focus is. In collaboration with colleagues and myself, these outcomes are then broken down further and differentiated in a weekly plan to support students with their needs and areas of learning. Due to the nature of child-centered learning and the inquiry process supported by the PYP, these weekly outcomes may flex and change with the interests of the students and may also change to some extent from day to day. Here is where probably the most fundamental difference between the PYP and other content-based curricula comes into effect as PYP teachers don’t just continue with the prescribed textbook and pages, they alter their planning to meet the needs of their students, no matter how often it needs to happen. Welcome to the world of teacher planning!
The Primary Years Programme (PYP) is an integrated, international curriculum that is relevant, challenging and engaging for all learners. It fosters the development of the whole child through its transdisciplinary nature, and it is a process-led, inquiry-based curriculum framework that actively encourages students to ask questions and seek answers about the world around them.
What is inquiry-based learning? It involves:
Exploring, wondering and questioning
Experimenting and playing with possibilities
Making connections between previous education and current learning
Making predictions and acting purposefully to see what happens
Collecting data and reporting findings
Clarifying existing ideas and evaluating perceptions
Deepening understanding through the application of concepts
Generating and testing ideas
Taking and defending a position
Solving problems in a variety of ways
How is the PYP structured?
The PYP encourages a collaborative approach to teaching and learning, allowing educators to design learning experiences, lessons, and programmes that meet a child’s individual needs (academic, social, physical, emotional and cultural).
These learning experiences get the students thinking beyond the classroom, and engaging with communities in local, national and global contexts. The PYP emphasizes a student-centered approach, responding to the needs of all students regardless of their ability, nationality or educational background.
One of the most significant and distinctive features of the PYP are the six transdisciplinary themes. These themes allow learning to take place outside of the confines of traditional curriculum areas, and they relate to significant issues that are important to all of us:
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 PYP curriculum is taught through large, cross-curricular units known as Units of Inquiry (UOI). These class-specific units are arranged under the six transdisciplinary themes to develop a programme of inquiry (POI) for the year. Each class will explore each of the six transdisciplinary themes every year.
The units allow for in-depth investigations into important ideas, identified by the teachers, and require a high level of involvement on the part of students. These substantial inquiries last for six weeks, and all of the units across the entire school are collectively known as the Programme of Inquiry (POI).
All curriculum areas are integrated when possible, and the class teacher takes responsibility for teaching most of these. However, single-subject teaching also occurs separately, and the children attend specialist lessons for Art, Music, Swimming, Yoga, Physical Education, and Languages.