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The PYP transdisciplinary curriculum that
is engaging, relevant, challenging, and significant is designed for
students between 3-12 years old.
The
curriculum is:
Internationally oriented
Planning, teaching, and assessing
are based on exploring the learners’ personal cultural identities in
order to get the most of the diversity of our students and in order to
promote their understanding and awareness of the whole world.
Inquiry-based
Inquiry is the leading pedagogical
approach of the PYP. Learners learn best through structured, purposeful
inquiry that engages students actively in their own learning. Learners
should be invited to investigate significant issues by formulating their
own questions, designing their own inquiries, assessing the various
means available to support their inquiries, and proceeding with
research, experimentation, observation, and analysis that will help them
in finding their own responses to the issues. The starting point is the
learners’ current understanding, and the goal is the active construction
of meaning by building connections between that understanding and new
information and experience.
Transdisciplinary
At the heart of the PYP curriculum there
are the essential elements: knowledge, concepts, skills, attitudes, and
actions. These elements transcend subject area boundaries and forge the
curriculum into a coherent transdisciplinary whole that is engaging,
relevant, challenging, and significant.
All disciplines in the PYP are integrated and taught under
transdisciplinary themes in order to help children make connections with
the real life, to facilitate their understanding, and promote their
interest. These transdisciplinary themes represent “life-long
inquiries”, and each grade revisits elements of these Transdisciplinary
themes throughout their primary years through age appropriate “Units of
Inquiry”. Together, these form the basis for personal and global
learning. The units of inquiry are represented within the school’s
“Programme of Inquiry”.
The school’s Programme of Inquiry incorporates the entire Science and
Social Studies curriculum and much of the Personal, Social and Physical
Education (PSPE) programs. Language, Mathematics, PSPE , Visual Art,
Music, and Drama are integrated purposefully to allow for connection and
application in meaningful contexts. However, the curriculum also allows
for independent or “stand-alone” lessons in these areas.
The aim of this programme is to
nurture citizens of the world who are:
• Inquirers
• Thinkers
• Communicators
• Risk-takers
• Knowledgeable
• Principled
• Caring
• Open minded
• Balanced
• Reflective
Using the key questions and concepts:
• What is it like? (Form)
• How does it work? (Function)
• Why is it like this? (Causation)
• How is it changing? (Change)
• How is it connected to other things? (Connection)
• What are the points of view? (Perspective)
• What is our responsibility? (Responsibility)
• How do we know? (Reflection)
To promote the attitudes of:
• Tolerance
• Respect
• Integrity
• Independence
• Enthusiasm
• Empathy
• Curiosity
• Creativity
• Cooperation
• Confidence
• Commitment
• Appreciation
In order to develop their thinking, communication, social, research, and
self-management skills.
The disciplines taught in
PYP are:
Languages
Language plays a vital role in the construction of
meaning. It empowers the learner and provides an intellectual framework
to support conceptual development and critical thinking. In the PYP, it
is recognized that the teaching of language should be in response to the
previous experience, needs, and interests of the student. Since
fragmenting learning into the acquisition of isolated skill sets can
create difficulties for learners. learners’ needs are best served when
they have opportunities to engage in learning within meaningful
contexts, rather than being presented with the learning of language as
an incremental series of skills to be acquired.
Language strands:
Oral language,
visual language, and written language are learned in a balanced way
across and throughout the curriculum. Each strand is an integral
component of language learning.
• The
languages of instruction are English and Arabic or French and Arabic.
• Second Language is taught as a foreign language from the age of 7.
Math
It is important that learners acquire mathematical
understanding by constructing their own meaning through ever-increasing
levels of abstraction, starting with exploring their own personal
experiences, understandings, and knowledge. Additionally, it is
fundamental to the philosophy of the PYP that since it is to be used in
real-life situations; mathematics needs to be taught in relevant,
realistic contexts, rather than by attempting to impart a fixed body of
knowledge directly to students. How children learn mathematics can be
described using the following strands:
• Numbers
• Data Handling
• Shapes and Space
• Measurement
• Pattern and Function
Science
Science is used to provide explanations and models
of behavior for phenomena and objects around us. It Is also used to
investigate the interrelationships between the biological, chemical and
physical worlds. The science component of the curriculum is considered
to be driven by concepts and skills rather than by content. Science Is
viewed as a way of thinking and as a process that strives for balance
between the construction of meaning and the acquisition of knowledge and
skills.It is taught under the following strands:
• Living
Things
• Materials and Matter
• Forces and Energy
• Earth and Space
Social studies
Decisions about content in social studies are
dependent on the school’s location, context and curriculum requirements.
The school relates the social studies content to significant and
universal concepts common to all societies, times and places. Social
studies teaching and learning takes place within the program of inquiry
under the following strands:
• Human systems
and economic activities
• Social organization and culture
• Continuity and change through time
• Human and natural environments
• Resources and the environment
Arts
Arts, including visual arts, music, drama, and
dance engage, students in creative processes through which they explore
and experiment in a continual cycle of action and reflection. Such
creative processes are seen by the PYP as the driving forceof learning
through inquiry. From an early age, students have the opportunity to
develop genuine interests, to give careful consideration to their work,
and to become self-critical and reflective. Reflecting on and evaluating
their own work and the work of others is vital and empowers students to
take intellectual risks. Exposure to and experience with arts opens
doors to questions about life and learning. The process of making and
appreciating arts is gratifying and will encourage students to continue
creating throughout their lives.Arts are taught under the following
strands:
• Responding
• Creating
Personal,Social and Physical Education
PSPE is an integral part of students’ everyday
life at school and at home. It is an essential part of the curriculum
and, as students engage with it across and between the subject areas,
they come to a deeper understanding of its relevance and applicability
in their everyday lives. Appropriate attitudes and behaviours are also
modeled within the school community. Students learn best when the
learning experiences they engage with provide them with the motivation
to achieve their personal goals. PSPE promotes transdisciplinary
learning through the transdisciplinary themes, the learner profile and
the essential elements of the programme. Personal,Social, And Physical
Education are taught under the following strands:
• Identity
• Active Living
• Interactions
REFERENCE:
International Baccalaureate Organization. 2010.
Primary Years Progamme, Making the PYP Happen: A curriculum framework
for international primary education.
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