2)+PYP

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====The International School of Schaffhausen is a Primary Years Programme school. What does this mean? To find out more go to the IB website at [|www.ibo.org]. We were authorised in 2003 and we had our Evaluation visit in May 2006. Both occasions were very positive and many aspects of our school were commended.====

==== Unser Curriculum wird durch das Primary Years Program der International Baccalaureate Organization getragen, das in 125 Ländern mit zweitausend Schulen vertreten ist. Die auf Fragen basierende Herangehensweise des PYP Programms an das Lehren und Lernen bindet die Schüler vollkommen in den Lernprozess ein: die Lehrerinnen und Lehrer ermutigen die Schüler dazu, Fragen zu stellen und lehren sie, Antworten zu finden. Unser Ziel für die Grundschuljahre ist es, in unseren Schülern die Grundlagen des Lernens zu verankern. Dazu gehören die Liebe zum Lesen, die Fähigkeit zum Schreiben, das Zahlenverständnis, aber auch eine solide Lernfähigkeit und ein Verantwortungsgefühl gegenüber den eigenen Stärken und Fertigkeiten sowie gegenüber den Mitschülern. ====

===Thank you to all those who were able to attend the PYP Parent Workshop on Thursday evening. I hope that it was useful and informative. I will post details about future workshops, based on your questions and interests, in the bulletin. There are still handouts available for those unable to come along. I showed two video clips. The first is called ‘Did You Know 2008, 3.0’ and can be searched on YouTube. It certainly makes apparent the changing world we live in and the workshop illustrated how the IB programme responds to these challenges. The second video was from a series for teachers on ‘inquiry’: www.learner.org/resources/series129.html. I played the first 6 minutes of the video for ‘Workshop 1: What is inquiry and why do we do it?’ Both clips give those who couldn’t attend the workshop a gist of what the IB education is about. Thank you for leaving your questions. I will address them through Bulletin articles over the next few months. Victoria Roberts, PYP Coordinator ===

= = ===When most people think of the meaning for the word “curriculum” the first thing that comes to mind is a written body of knowledge that students will be exposed to in school. In addition to this, some would include a set of academic skills students should acquire and maybe even a set of positive character traits that students will be encouraged to model as parts of a school’s curriculum. There are endless debates about the merits of the great variety of written curriculums that exist for elementary students – which is the most rigorous, most developmentally appropriate, most culturally appropriate and so on. Parents often choose schools for their children based primarily on their preference for one type of written curriculum over another. The IB Primary Years Programme takes a different and much broader view of curriculum. According to the PYP, “curriculum” revolves around the concept of learners constructing meaning, and everyone at a PYP school, including the teachers, is a learner. The PYP model of curriculum is student-centered. It is founded on the belief that learning occurs when students (and teachers) build on their prior knowledge and engage in activities that help them construct new understandings. This process involves continuous self-reflection, the freedom to ask questions, the motivation to take risks and the desire to take action based on what one has learned. ===

===So what does the PYP curriculum model look like? It is composed of three interrelated, and equally important components. Each component is expressed as a question, in keeping with the spirit of inquiry found throughout the Primary Years Programme. ===



===The first question, **“What do we want to learn?”** represents the written curriculum. Our PYP school’s written curriculum utilizes a set of learning standards and benchmarks developed and written by QA teachers from Pre-School 3 to Grade 12. These are then organized under six area of knowledge (see page 3) into what is called the ‘Programme of Inquiry’. Teachers at a PYP school work collaboratively to develop this transdisciplinary “Programme of Inquiry” that is unique to their school. It allows learners to move beyond the recall of basic facts as they explore larger concepts. You will be kept informed of these units in this newsletter and in the Grade specific newsletters. ===

===The second question, “**How best will we learn?”** represents the taught curriculum in a PYP school. The taught curriculum involves the methods teachers use to engage students with the written curriculum. It is not only “what” students will learn but also “how” they will learn it that matters in a PYP school. PYP teachers are expected to constantly examine and improve the practices they use to actively involve students in learning. All the teachers in our Primary School will be attending a two day workshop on inquiry teaching in January lead by two IBO trainers. ===

===The third question, “How will we know what we have learned?”  represents the learned curriculum. PYP teachers develop a variety of authentic assessment strategies (examples include student presentations, portfolios, projects, written tests, student self-reflections, peer reflections, interviews, demonstrations and many others) to find out not only if students learned what they were expected to learn from the written curriculum but also what actual earning took place instead of or in addition to what was expected. Assessment in a PYP school has a positive connotation since it focuses on what a learner can do at the current moment instead of on what they can’t do. ===

===All three components of the curriculum of a Primary Years Programme school - the Written, Taught and Learned curriculums – function in harmony to help produce life-long learners who can be successful in tomorrow’s world. ===




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PYP LEARNER PROFILE __** Since the PYP began over ten years ago, the PYP Learner Profile has been a pivotal component of the programme. We believe that the ten attributes that make up the profile, contribute to the development of an internationally minded person. Students are explicitly and implicitly taught about what each of these attributes means and how they can develop these attributes. The Learner Profile has been adopted for students and teachers in all three IB programmes as one way of ensuring better articulation between the PYP, the MYP and the Diploma Programme. We use the vocabulary of the Learner Profile with children throughout the school and encourage parents to do the same at home. For instance parents should encourage and praise a child for being a risk-taker when they try an unfamiliar food or try to do something independently for the first time. A child demonstrates how they are principled when they choose to tell the truth about something that they have done wrong or include a child who has been left out in a group game or activity.

The IB in the classroom
This short video helps to bring the IB mission to life by introducing the IB learner profile. media type="youtube" key="wqMZ1uXOZ80&hl=en&fs=1" height="344" width="425"

=For more information on the PYP please contact the PYP Coordinator, Nick Wragg at __n.wragg@issh.ch__=