International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (IB PYP)
The International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (IB PYP) aims to foster the development of 3-12 year-old students academically, socially, physically, emotionally, and culturally, so that they can respond to the challenges and opportunities in our rapidly changing and complex world, becoming lifelong learners. PYP is a transdisciplinary, inquiry-based, and student-centered education that places responsible action at its core. It emphasizes that everyone has a voice, choice, and ownership in influencing learning and teaching.
PYP (Primary Years Programme) In Eyüboğlu Primary Schools
Being authorized to implement IB PYP since 2005, Eyüboğlu provides a learning environment that arouses curiosity, encourages inquiry, and enables research. We prepare our students to actively participate in a lifelong learning journey by providing a curriculum that integrates the Ministry of National Education's curriculum with the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program at Eyüboğlu Primary Schools.
Students take responsibility, acquire knowledge, and develop positive attitudes throughout their learning journey. They participate in the planning of decisions that affect them and feel confident in taking initiative and action as part of their learning. Students have their own voices, choices, and ownership when it comes to their learning.
Our program creates a set of values where, in all subjects, both students and teachers actively engage in the topics that students are curious about, rather than determining the areas of knowledge to be covered. Students are taught that learning means asking questions, seeking answers to questions, and thus asking new and more complex questions. Our teachers, while working with our students through this guided inquiry program, also help students understand their responsibility for their own learning.
In PYP, character development holds a significant place alongside learning. Throughout the program, students acquire deep-rooted profiles and behaviors that will form the foundation for their future lives. The program places emphasis on the acquisition of advanced thinking skills while also carefully designed to meet the requirements of the national curriculum.
Essential Elements of the Program
PYP aims to strike a balance between understanding through inquiry, acquiring essential knowledge and skills, positive behavior development, and opportunities for positive action. To achieve this balance, PYP emphasizes five key elements of the curriculum:
- Concepts
- Knowledge
- Skills
- Attitudes
- Action
Concepts: What do we want students to understand?
There are seven key concepts in the curriculum. These concepts facilitate the planning of a conceptual approach in both transdisciplinary and subject-specific learning. They serve as tools for students to engage in inquiry and research about local and global opportunities and challenges of significance.
- Form
- Function
- Causation
- Change
- Connection
- Perspective
- Responsibility
Knowledge: What do we want students to know?
Rather than creating a fixed curriculum, PYP has identified thematic areas or subject areas with the following qualities:
- It is of significance to all students and all cultures.
- It provides opportunities for students to explore knowledge that is highly relevant to understanding humanity.
- It encompasses the knowledge areas that make up traditional education but goes beyond these areas by presenting them in a way that facilitates transdisciplinary planning and instruction.
- It is revisited throughout students' learning experiences, resulting in a curriculum content that forms a coherent continuum from early childhood to the secondary years.
In PYP, the themes that organize knowledge and support the development and display of international-mindedness are as follows:
Who We Are
An inquiry into the nature of the self; beliefs and values; personal, physical, mental, social and spiritual health; human relationships including families, friends, communities, and cultures; rights and responsibilities; and what it means to be human.
Where We Are in Place and Time
An inquiry into orientation in place and time, personal histories, homes and journeys, the discoveries, explorations and migrations of humankind, the relationships between and the interconnectedness of individuals and civilizations, from local and global perspectives.
How We Express Ouselves
An 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
An 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.
How We Organize Ourselves
An inquiry into the interconnectedness of human-made systems and communities; the structure and function of organisations; societal decision-making; economic activities and their impact on humankind and the environment.
Sharing the Planet
An inquiry into rights and responsibilities in the struggle to share finite resources with other people and with other living things; communities and the relationships within and between them; access to equal opportunities; peace and conflict resolution.
Approaches to Learning (ATL)
Approaches to Learning (ATL) is an integral part of the IB education and complements the learner profile, knowledge, conceptual understanding, and inquiry. The purpose of the skills in the five interrelated categories is to support students of all ages in becoming self-regulated learners who know how to ask good questions, set effective goals, pursue those goals with determination, and regulate their own learning. These skills also reinforce students' sense of agency by helping them view their learning as an active and dynamic process.
Thinking Skills
- Critical Thinking Skills
- Creative Thinking Skills
- Transfer Skills
- Metacognitive Skills
Research Skills
- Information Literacy Skills
- Media Literacy Skills
- Ethical Use of Media and Information
Communication Skills
- Exchanging-information skills
- Literacy skills
- ICT skills
Social Skills
- Building Positive Interpersonal Relationships and Collaboration with Individuals
- Developing Socio-Emotional Intelligence
Self-management Skills
- Organizational Skills
- States of Mind (mindfulness, perseverance, emotional management, self-motivation, resilience)
ACTION
The action at the center of student agency is integrated with the development of international-mindedness that encompasses the entire learning process and the entire Primary Years Programme (PYP). Students begin to understand the responsibilities of having an international mindset and appreciate the benefits of working with others for a common purpose by taking individual and collective action. When students see tangible actions they can choose to make a difference, they perceive themselves as competent, capable, and effective agents of change. Taking action in response to their inquiries forms the basis of community service in the Middle Years Programme (MYP) and underpins creativity, action, and service (CAS) in the Diploma Programme (DP).
Which resources are used to implement the PYP Program?
The school believes in utilizing all available physical and virtual environments to enhance both physical and virtual learning. It benefits from a flexible learning environment that encourages inquiry and nurtures curiosity by making use of all opportunities that are conducive to this. The school employs supportive and rich materials to implement the program effectively. The school library is utilized to encourage and enhance research methods in inquiry units. The library also plays a significant role in supporting in-class reading and writing instruction.
PYP technology education involves integrating students into the reciprocal interaction between learning technology, learning about technology, and learning through technology. Technology, often seen as a tool or resource, facilitates and expands learning possibilities. Technology encompasses a range of resources, including traditional tools like pencils, laptops, iPads, cameras, as well as sources like books, websites, games, interactive stories, and more. Conceptually, it encompasses coding, communication, information, design, and innovation. As an extension of learning, it supports the development of critical, creative, and transfer thinking in addition to systems and computational thinking. In the PYP, technology learning and teaching are best supported, enhanced, and extended within the scope of a transdisciplinary inquiry program that allows students to apply technology purposefully and authentically. The seamless integration of technology enhances student agency and enables learning that is independent of time and place. For this reason, all members of the learning community are responsible for both the learning and teaching of technology, as well as its integration.
Assessment in the Primary years Program
In the Primary Years Programme (PYP), assessment involves teachers and students work collaboratively while monitoring, documenting, measuring, and reporting learning. The IB encourages schools to use a variety of formative and summative assessment strategies. Official exams required by the Ministry of National Education are also included in the assessment strategies of PYP schools.
Every assessment at Eyüboğlu is authentic, meaningful, rich, engaging, and easy to implement, and students are actively involved in the assessment process. When students engage effectively in assessment and take action based on constructive feedback, they become effective, self-regulated learners. This helps them make decisions about their own development, set learning goals, and determine what they need to do to achieve these goals, fostering reflective thinking. Formative assessment is integrated with daily learning, helping both teachers and students see what students know to plan the next stages of learning. Summative assessment occurs at the end of each unit and provides students with the opportunity to present what they have learned.
REFERENCES
From Principles into Practices, The Learner, Learning and Teaching, The Learning Community. IB (International Baccalaureate Organisation), IB,2018
