“The IB international curriculum is ideal for our Crawford students who as global citizens find themselves in a rapidly changing world. The IB PYP will pave the way for students to become lifelong learners who are reflective, dynamic 21st Century citizens, continually engaging with relevant, challenging and authentic conceptually driven inquiries, building connections, and making sense of the world around them,” says Traci Salter-Willis, Head of IB and Academic Strategic Development Advisor at ADvTECH South Africa, and an appointed IBEN Global Trainer and IB School Team Visitor.
“The PYP is structured around empowering them to become reflective, creative and innovative learners who are able to grapple with modern-day 4IR challenges and engage in discussions relevant to the world of today,” she says.
The Primary Years Programme is unique in its approach as it continually incorporates local and global issues into the curriculum, asking students to look at six related, transdisciplinary themes and to consider the links between them and the real-world.
“The PYP transdisciplinary framework encourages and supports connections across learning and teaching as a means of raising students’ awareness of the connections between and the relevance of their learning. As such, the units of inquiry the students engage in are transformed from what is traditionally known as topics, into exploring conceptual understandings of greater depth. For example, instead of learning about ‘water’ as a topic, students inquire into how people depend on and need to conserve Earth’s limited resources,” says Salter-Willis.
“Or, instead of simply learning about food chains as an isolated topic, students inquire into an understanding of how living things depend on each other for survival – and the impact that occurs when this is disrupted.”
Salter-Willis says Crawford Schools, as part of the ADvTECH Group’s commitment to academic excellence, chose the PYP because it helps students create meaning in a complex and interdependent world by building understanding through exploring real-world issues.
“It also creates opportunities for students to become more confident communicators who are able to share their understandings in a variety of multi-modal approaches, including verbal, written, digital, face-to-face, pictorial, and so forth.”
She further explains that the aim is to not simply make students learn, but to teach them about learning how to learn, and exploring the application of knowledge, understanding and skills in a variety of contexts, considering a multitude of perspectives.
“There is constant self-reflection and student agency, ensuring everyone has voice and choice, and ultimately the expectation in all learning, to consider one’s next steps on the path to progression. The programme helps students see events and issues from different perspectives through encouraging international-mindedness, developing greater consideration of oneself, of others, and of different countries and cultures, ultimately allowing students to become more open-minded and tolerant to alternative perspectives.
“While the PYP still encompasses the same subject areas familiar to South African learners, the way it is packaged, presented, taught and inquired into is truly unique,” she says.
The fundamental reasons why this programme makes sense as the framework from which to develop the leaders of the future, is because the PYP:
- Encourages students to enquire and nurtures natural curiosity
- Allows students to understand our complex and inter-dependent world
- Develops confident communicators
- Develops the ability to learn how to learn
- Encourages international-mindedness
- Enables the ability to see things from different perspectives
- Empowers students to take action
- Develops the agility and imagination to effectively think about issues
- Involves the whole school learning community, and
- Grows students into becoming caring and responsible citizens
Crawford Schools
introduced the IB PYP this year, and are endorsed as Candidate IB Schools. They are working through the formal process of all seven primary schools being authorised as accredited IB World School by 2020, when an international school visitor team will assess each campus, and determine whether they have met the required IB Standards and Practices and can therefore be verified as international IB PYP World Schools.