Primary Year Programme

Students in the 21st century are faced with the challenge of learning about an interconnected world where knowledge is constantly developing. The International Baccalaureate® (IB) Primary Years Programme prepares students to be active participants in the lifelong journey of learning.

What is the Primary Years Programme?

The IB Primary Years Programme, for students aged 3 to 12, focuses on the development of the child as a whole and not parts. The program specially aims to bring alive the inquirer in each child by rousing her curiosity, both in the classroom and in the world outside.

The written curriculum

The most significant and distinctive feature of the IB Primary Years Programme is the six transdisciplinary themes.

These themes are about issues that have meaning for, and are important to, all of us. The programme offers a balance between learning about the real world through the subjects and beyond the subjects. The six themes of global significance create a transdisciplinary framework that allows students to ‘step out’, beyond the confines of learning within the subjects ,thus opening their minds to the larger world that exists outside.

• Who we are
• Where we are in place and time
• How we express ourselves
• How the world works
• How we organize ourselves
• Sharing the planet

The taught curriculum

The six transdisciplinary themes help teachers to design a programme that requires inquiry and in-depth investigations into important ideas ( identified by the teachers). These inquiries are substantial, in-depth and usually last for several weeks. This requires a high level of involvement on the part of the students, leading to deeper learning and on hands experience.

The assessed curriculum

Assessment is an important part of each unit of inquiry as it both enhances learning and provides opportunities for students to reflect on what they know, understand and can do. The teacher’s feedback to the students provides the guidance, the tools and the incentive for them to become more competent, more skillful and develop better understanding about how to learn.

Primary Years Programme – Curriculum Framework

At the heart of the programme’s philosophy is a commitment to structured, purposeful inquiry as the leading vehicle for learning.

Six transdisciplinary themes

Six transdisciplinary themes of global significance mentioned above provide the framework for exploration and study.

Teachers are guided by these six transdisciplinary themes as they design units of inquiry that both transcend and articulate conventional subject boundaries.

The programme can be illustrated through a hexagon with the six transdisciplinary themes surrounding six subject areas:

• language
• social studies
• mathematics
• arts
• science
• personal, social and physical education.

The transdisciplinary themes and subject areas outlined above form the knowledge element of the programme.

Five essential elements

The five essential elements—concepts, knowledge, skills, attitudes, action—are incorporated into this framework, so that students are given the opportunity to:

• gain knowledge that is relevant and of global significance
• develop an understanding of concepts, which allows them to make connections throughout their learning
• acquire transdisciplinary and disciplinary skills
• develop attitudes that will lead to international-mindedness
• take action as a consequence of their learning.

Curriculum model

The curriculum is expressed in three interrelated ways:

• the written curriculum—what do we want to learn?
• the taught curriculum—how best will we learn?
• the assessed curriculum—how will we know what we have learned?

Our Principal Goal

Our principal goal in the primary school will be to equip students with the tools of learning and to enthuse and stimulate them to become life long learners who can contribute positively to the world.