Delhi Public School Ghaziabad International has a vision to impart global education of international standards. The school is authorized to offer the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program.
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.
The PYP offers an inquiry-based, transdisciplinary curriculum framework that builds conceptual understanding. It is a student-centered approach to education for children aged 3-12. It reflects the best of educational research, thought leadership and experience derived from IB World Schools.
The PYP has evolved to become a world leader in future-focused education. The PYP is an example of best educational practice globally, responding to the challenges and opportunities facing young students in our rapidly changing world.
The PYP curriculum framework
The PYP curriculum framework begins with the premise that students are agents of their own learning and partners in the learning process. It prioritizes people and their relationships to build a strong learning community.
PYP students use their initiative to take responsibility and ownership of their learning. By learning through inquiry and reflecting on their own learning, PYP students develop knowledge, conceptual understandings, skills and the attributes of the IB Learner profile to make a difference in their own lives, their communities, and beyond.
The framework emphasizes the central principle of agency, which underpins the three pillars of school life:
Link1: The Learner
Link2: Learning and Teaching
Link3: The Learning Community
(Adapted from the International Baccalaureate Organization)
Schools Mission Statement
Our mission is to create global citizens, who possess intercultural respect and understanding. The society is committed to igniting the minds of the learners to dream big and possess valuable life skills, to imparting quality education that would transform the students into independent, resilient and socially sensitive learners by providing them valued learning experiences to help them contribute for the well – being of the society.
IB PYP Mission
The International Baccalaureate aims to develop inquiring,
knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more
peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.
To this end the organization works with schools, governments
and international organizations to develop challenging programes of
international education and rigorous assessment.
These programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right. This inquiry based programe revolves around the six transdisciplinary themes surrounding the six subject areas. Teachers are guided by these six transdisciplinary themes as they design units of inquiry that both transcend and articulate conventional subject boundaries.
PYP Transdisciplinary Themes
The PYP has six trans disciplinary themes that provide the framework for learning. These themes are globally significant and support the acquisition of knowledge, concepts and skills of the traditional subjects. They are revisited throughout the students' time in the PYP.
How the PYP Works?
Who we are
An inquiry into identity as individuals and as part of a collective through:
● physical, emotional and spiritual health and well-being;
● relationships and belonging;
● learning and growing
Where we are in place and time
An inquiry into histories and orientation in place, space and time through:
● periods, events and artifacts;
● communities, heritage, culture and environment;
● natural and human drivers of movement, adaptation and transformation
How we express ourselves
An inquiry into the diversity of voice, perspectives, and expression through:
● inspiration, imagination, creativity;
● personal, social, and cultural notes and practices of communication;
● intentions, perceptions, interpretations, and responses
How the world works
An inquiry into the understandings of the world and phenomena through:
● patterns, cycles, systems;
● diverse practices, methods, and tools;
● discovery, design, innovation, possibilities, and impacts
How we organize ourselves
An inquiry into systems, structures, and networks through:
● interactions with and between social and ecological systems;
● approaches to livelihoods and trade practice - intended and unintended consequences;
● representation, collaboration, and decision-making
Sharing the planet
An inquiry into the interdependence of human and natural worlds through:
● rights, responsibilities, and dignity of all;
● pathways to just, peaceful, and reimagined futures;
● nature, complexity, coexistence, and wisdom
The IB Learner Profile: Bringing the IB Mission to Life
The learner profile attributes reflect a diverse set of human capacities and responsibilities that support growth across intellectual, personal, emotional and social dimensions. As students develop and demonstrate these qualities, they build the foundation for becoming internationally minded, engaged and compassionate members of their communities, people who respect themselves, others and the wider world.
© International Baccalaureate Organization
Adapted from the International Baccalaureate Organization
Identifying Appropriate and Relevant Learner Profile Attributes
Teachers and students work together to select learner profile attributes that are meaningful and relevant to particular units of inquiry and inquiry skills. Students may choose attributes that resonate with them personally or that they want to practise and strengthen. The attributes that matter most can change over time for each student, depending on factors such as personal learning goals, stage of development or the skills being focused on. This may involve students:
Adapted from the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO)
Action
The learning community is responsive in recognizing, appreciating and supporting action. The following figure “supporting action” can be used, in a flexible way, to reflect on the appropriateness of support provided at different times, in different ways and to varying degrees. This support depends on the context of individual and collective learning and experiences, which could include (but is not limited to) the timing, planning, scope, term, scale and types of action.
© International Baccalaureate Organization
Adapted from the International Baccalaureate Organization
Agency
Conceptualized by Bandura in social cognitive theory, agency “enable[s] people to play a part in their self-development, adaptation, and self-renewal with changing times” (Bandura 2001).
PYP students with agency use their own initiative and will, and take responsibility and ownership of their learning. They direct their learning with a strong sense of identity and self-belief, and in conjunction with others, thereby building a sense of community and awareness of the opinions, values and needs of others.
© International Baccalaureate Organization
Adapted from the International Baccalaureate Organization
Subject-Specific Skills and Approaches to Learning
As learners engage with and through the subjects, they develop the skills needed to learn those subjects effectively. In language, for instance, they develop literacy, while in mathematics they develop numeracy. Building literacy and numeracy in the widest sense is vital, because these skills equip learners with the tools they need to inquire.
Alongside literacy and numeracy, learners also develop a set of interconnected approaches to learning that can be applied across different contexts. These skills enable meaningful inquiry and lay the groundwork for learning throughout life. Educational research often highlights them as key to helping learners learn well and thrive both within and beyond school (Trilling and Fadel 2009; Wagner 2014). The five interconnected approaches to learning are:
● Thinking skills
● Research skills
● Communication skills
● Social skills
● Self-management skills
© International Baccalaureate Organization
Adapted from the International Baccalaureate Organization
Inquiry in Practice: The Role of Teachers
PYP teachers recognise that learning comes alive when learners can link knowledge to concepts and to their own experiences in meaningful ways. To nurture agency, teachers draw on a variety of strategies, tools and resources to spark curiosity and create productive tension through provocation, collaboration, investigation and reflection. The sample learning opportunities within the inquiry learning progressions offer further support as teachers plan and design inquiry experiences. © International Baccalaureate Organization
Adapted from the International Baccalaureate Organization
Learners as Inquirers
Valuing positive relationships lays the groundwork for successful inquiry and strengthens learners' self-efficacy and agency. As they engage in the inquiry process, learners actively build and maintain positive relationships with their peers, teachers and others in the learning community. They also work to form meaningful connections with environments, ideas, materials and concepts. Through inquiry, learners gain knowledge, develop conceptual understandings and build skills. The inquiry learning progressions make the skills of inquiry clear and visible, helping learners set goals and deepen their understanding of their own inquiry skills. Figure IN02 explores the different aspects of learners as inquirers.
© International Baccalaureate Organization
Adapted from the International Baccalaureate Organization
Assessment in the PYP: Empowering Learners, Informing Teaching
The PYP approach to assessment places learners at the heart of the assessment process and encourages teachers to ensure that assessment is fit for purpose. Effective assessment practice in the PYP brings together assessment for learning, assessment of learning and assessment as learning in a holistic way (Harlen and Johnson 2014), supporting both effective learning and effective teaching. © International Baccalaureate Organization
Adapted from the International Baccalaureate Organization
Developing International-Mindedness
Educating for international-mindedness starts with building a school culture that treats the world as the widest possible context for learning. To nurture an internationally minded culture, schools may consider:
● directing student inquiries towards building relationships with ourselves and with others across the human and natural worlds
● providing opportunities for meaningful cultural engagement and action within local and global communities
● valuing multilingualism as a way to strengthen intercultural dialogue and global engagement
© International Baccalaureate Organization
Adapted from the International Baccalaureate Organization
Technology Learning in the PYP
Drawing on the IB's guidance on technology, the PYP approach to technology seeks to help students build:
● technological literacy
● competence in using technology
● confidence with technology
© International Baccalaureate Organization
Adapted from the International Baccalaureate Organization
IB Continuums
The Primary Years Programme (PYP) includes subject
continuums for the following areas, which enrich learning across the six
transdisciplinary themes:
● Language
● Mathematics
● Science
● Social
Studies
● Arts
● Personal,
Social and Physical Education (PSPE)
The subject continuums set out the key elements of learning and teaching for each subject, including:
● an explanation of each subject strand
● the overall expectations for every strand
● phase-based examples that describe conceptual understandings and learning outcomes for each phase – IBO
Inquiry Learning Progressions
The inquiry learning progressions are skills-based frameworks designed for learners aged 5 to 16. They show what it means to be an inquiry learner in the PYP and the Middle Years Programme (MYP), describing how inquiry skills appear within and across subjects and how they develop over time.
The inquiry learning progressions:
● make a selection of key inquiry skills clear and visible
● help the learning community understand how learners grow in these skills over time
● offer educators and learners a model that balances the learning and assessment of both surface-level and deep thinking
● support the monitoring and documentation of learning, as well as the giving of feedback
● focus on growth rather than on what learners cannot yet do
● recognise that every inquiry learner follows their own personal learning journey
© International Baccalaureate Organization
PYP Exhibition
The PYP exhibition centres on local or global issues and opportunities, which teachers and students use as the basis for developing central ideas. These issues and opportunities can be linked within, between and across the transdisciplinary themes, and they open the door to responsive, reflexive and reciprocal action, including the choice not to act.
The exhibition process begins with students and teachers exploring local or global issues and opportunities that feel meaningful to them. Through this exploration, they generate ideas, uncover interests and identify directions for student inquiry.
A suitable global issue or opportunity:
● can be approached through a range of subjects
● connects within, between and across the transdisciplinary themes
● holds local and/or global relevance that students can relate to
● is broad and significant enough for every student to investigate it in depth
● builds on students' experiences throughout the PYP
● accommodates students with different passions, interests and strengths.
● acknowledge and nurture learner agency
● highlight inquiry as a process of learning
© International Baccalaureate Organization
Adapted from the International Baccalaureate Organization
