IB Primary Years Programme
BBIS is authorized to teach the Primary Years Programme (PYP) of the International Baccalaureate. The Primary Years Programme is designed for students between the ages of 3 and 12 years, and offers a comprehensive, inquiry-based approach to teaching and learning. The curriculum values the total growth of the developing child, focusing on hearts as well as minds. It addresses the social, physical, emotional, and cultural needs in addition to academic growth.
Through the PYP at BBIS, we offer students a caring and intellectually stimulating environment that values the process, as well as the product of learning. Central to our aim is the desire to encourage and challenge students to participate actively in their own learning, to learn how to learn, to think critically about what they are learning and to choose responsible ways of taking action. We strive to develop our students as internationally-minded people. These aims are captured in the IB Learner Profile, a set of attributes and dispositions that characterize a successful, global citizen. All of us in the BBIS learning community aim to be: inquirers, thinkers, communicators, risk-takers, knowledgeable, principled, caring, open-minded, balanced and reflective.
The PYP is based on three important, interrelated questions:
- What do we our want our students to learn? (The written curriculum)
- How best do our students learn? (The teaching methods)
- How do we know what our students have learned? (Assessment of learning)
What do we want our students to learn? (The written curriculum)
“To be truly educated, a student must also make connections across the disciplines, discover ways to integrate the separate subjects, and ultimately relate what they learn to life.”
E. Boyer
The Essential Elements
Our written curriculum incorporates five essential elements: concepts, skills, knowledge, attitudes and action. They are relevant in all the subject areas and provide for structured and purposeful inquiry.
The PYP identifies a body of knowledge for all students in all cultures, in six subject areas:
- Languages
- Social studies
- Mathematics
- Science and technology
- The arts: Music, Visual arts, Dance and Drama
- Personal, social, and physical education.
In the spirit of internationalism, students are required to learn a second language in addition to the language of instruction of the school.
The Programme of Inquiry and Transdisciplinary Themes
Each grade level studies six units of inquiry (four in EC3 and EC4 early childhood levels), which explore important global issues and human connections through six transdisciplinary themes. Whenever relevant, the individual subject knowledge is developed and applied through these themes:
- Who we are
- Where we are in place and time
- How we express ourselves
- How the world works
- How we organize ourselves
- How we share the planet
How best do our students learn? (The teaching methods)
“Learning is the creation of meaning that occurs when an individual links new knowledge with existing knowledge.”
L. Vygotsky
In the PYP at BBIS, we believe it is essential that students participate actively in their own learning in order to make the connections that lead to deep understanding. Guided inquiry in a transdisciplinary context is therefore at the centre as we plan for teaching and learning, whether in the homeroom or in specialist classes.
How do we know what our students have learned? (Assessment of learning)
“Students should receive feedback, not as a reward or punishment, but as information.”
Jerome Bruner
At BBIS we value diversity and know that students have different learning styles and learn at different rates. Assessment of learning happens in a variety of ways in order to best plan for the learning needs of our varied students. Students are also involved in reflecting on and assessing their own learning.
There are two types of assessment:
Pre-/Formative assessment
This is interwoven with daily teaching and learning and helps teachers and students find out what the students already know and how they are progressing in order to plan the next stage of learning. Formative assessment and teaching are directly linked; neither can function effectively or purposefully without the other.
Summative assessment
This happens at the end of the teaching and learning process. It gives the students opportunities to demonstrate what they have learned.
The PYP requires that the school keeps individual portfolios of student achievement as an important mechanism for documenting progress. Students aged 10 to 12, in the final year of the programme, are expected to participate in a culminating project, the PYP Exhibition. This is designed to demonstrate their proficiencies in all areas of the programme.
