The International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (PYP)
Our International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme Academy
The IB Primary Years Programme (PYP)* for children aged 3 – 12 nurtures and develops young students as caring, active participants in a lifelong journey of learning.
Through its inquiry-led, transdisciplinary framework, the PYP challenges students to think for themselves and take responsibility for their learning as they explore local and global issues and opportunities in real-life contexts.
The International Baccalaureate® (IB) Primary Years Programme (PYP) balances the acquisition of significant and relevant knowledge and skills, the development of conceptual understanding, the formation of personal, positive attitudes and the capacity to take responsible actions.
The PYP:
- Addresses students’ academic needs and their social and emotional well-being.
- Encourages students to develop independence and to take responsibility for their own learning.
- Supports students’ effort to gain understanding of the world and to function effectively within it.
- Helps students to establish personal values as a foundation on which international mindedness will flourish.
* Al Bateen Academy is a Candidate School for the PYP. We are pursuing authorization as an IB World School. These are schools that share a common philosophy – a commitment to high quality, challenging, international education that Al Bateen Academy believes is important for our students. Only schools authorized by the IB Organization can offer any of its four academic programmes: the Primary Years Programme (PYP), the Middle Years Programme (MYP), the Diploma Programme (DP), or the Career-related Programme (CP).
Candidate status gives no guarantee that authorization will be granted. For further information about the IB and its programmes, visit www.ibo.org
The five essential elements of the PYP
Knowledge
Concepts
Skills
Attitudes
Action
The six subject areas
The most significant and distinctive feature of the IB Primary Years Programme are the six transdisciplinary themes. These themes provide IB World Schools with the opportunity to incorporate local and global issues into the curriculum and effectively allow students to “step up” beyond the confines of learning within subject areas.
- Who we are – Inquiry into the nature of the self; beliefs and values; person, physical, mental, social and spiritual health; human relationships including families, friends, communities, and cultures; rights and responsibilities; what it means to be human.
- Where we are in place and time – Inquiry into orientation in place and time; personal histories; homes and journeys; the discoveries, explorations and migrations of humankind; the relationship between and the interconnectedness of individuals and civilizations, from local and global perspectives.
- How we express ourselves – Inquiry into the ways in which we discover and express ideas, feelings, nature, culture, beliefs and values; the ways in which we reflect on, extend and enjoy our creativity; our appreciation of the aesthetic.
- How the world works – Inquiry into the natural world and its laws, the interaction between the natural world (physical and biological) and human societies; how humans use their understanding of scientific principles; the impact of scientific and technological advances on society and on the environment.
The PYP presents schools with a comprehensive plan for high quality, international education.
It provides schools with a curriculum framework of essential elements — the knowledge, concepts, skills, attitudes, and action that young students need to equip them for successful lives, both now and in the future. Schools work with the five elements to construct a rigorous and challenging primary curriculum for international education. The PYP aims to create a curriculum that is engaging, relevant, challenging and significant for learners in the 3–12 age range. The curriculum is transdisciplinary, meaning that it focuses on issues that go across subject areas. The PYP is organized according to:
- The written curriculum, which explains what PYP students will learn.
- The taught curriculum, which sets out how educators teach the PYP.
- The assessed curriculum, which details the principles and practice of effective assessment in the PYP.
IB learners strive to become inquirers, knowledgeable, thinkers, communicators, principled, open-minded, caring, risk-takers, balanced, and reflective. These attributes represent a broad range of human capacities and responsibilities that go beyond intellectual development and academic success.