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Primary Years Programme - PYP

Primary Years Programme


  • The IB Primary Years Programme, for students aged 3 to 12 (early and Primary Years), focuses on the development of the whole child as an inquirer, both in the classroom and in the world outside. It is a framework guided by six transdisciplinary themes of global significance, explored using knowledge and skills derived from six subjects' areas, as well as transdisciplinary skills, with a powerful emphasis on inquiry.


Early Years


  • In the early years (3 – 6-year-olds), experiences play a pivotal role in shaping future social and cognitive learning (McCoy et al., 2017). The PYP framework supports cognitive and social-emotional development through play-based inquiry whereas six transdisciplinary themes guide meaningful exploration. Children primarily learn through play, fostering curiosity and agency. This active inquiry process develops language skills, self-regulation, and a positive sense of identity, preparing them for lifelong learning.


  • Play in children’s development highlights the importance of a developmentally appropriate environment for young children to learn at their own pace (Rushton, Juola-Rushton and Larkin 2010). Inquiring through play in the early years supports the notion that learning is an active process. Healthy learning environments and supportive relationships, created and demonstrated by the learning community, further support this learning process.



Primary Years


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. The IB Programs encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.


The IB offers high-quality programs of international education that share a powerful vision. An IB education: focuses on learners – the IB's student-centred programs promote healthy relationships, ethical responsibility and personal challenge


  • focuses on learners – the IB's student-centred programs promote healthy relationships, ethical responsibility and personal challenge


  • explores significant content – ​​​IB programs offer a curriculum that is broad and balanced, conceptual and connected.


  • works within global contexts – IB programs increase understanding of languages ​​and cultures, and explore globally significant ideas and issues


  • develops effective approaches to teaching and learning – IB Programmes help students to develop the attitudes and skills they need for both academic and personal success


Informed by values ​​​​described in the learner profile, IB learners strive to become inquirers, knowledgeable, thinkers, communicators, principled, open-minded, caring, risk-takers, balanced, and reflective. These attributes represent a broad range of human capacities and responsibilities that go beyond intellectual development and academic success. 

PYP Curriculum Model (How PYP Works)


The aim of the program is to develop internationally-minded people who help to create a better and more understanding world. 

Inquiry is used as our pedagogy for engaging students in deeper understanding and ownership of their learning. 


The curriculum is engaging, challenging and relevant, and actively supports students' developmental differences and learning styles. The curriculum focuses on the development of the whole child as an inquirer, both in the classroom and in the world outside. It prepares students to be active participants in a lifelong journey of learning. 


The Written Curriculum


The most significant and distinctive feature of the IB Primary Years Programme are the six transdisciplinary themes as follows:


     · 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 


Each theme is addressed each year by all students. (Students aged 3 to 5 engage with four of the themes each year.) 


These themes address issues that have meaning for, and are important to, all of us. The program offers a balance between learning about or through the subject areas, and learning beyond them. The six themes of global significance create a transdisciplinary framework that allows students to “step up” beyond the confidence of learning within subject areas.


The Taught Curriculum 


The six transdisciplinary themes help teachers to develop a program of inquiry, in-depth investigations into important ideas, identified by teachers, and requiring a high level of involvement on the part of the students. These inquiries are substantial, in-depth and usually last for several weeks. 


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 teachers' feedback to the students provides guidance and the tools and the incentives for them to become more competent, more skillful and better at understanding how to learn. 


The Exhibition 


The Exhibition is an important part of the PYP for all students. In the final year of the programme, students undertake a collaborative, transdisciplinary investigation process that involves them in identifying, investigating and offering solutions to real-life issues or problems. As the culminating experience of the PYP, the Exhibition offers students an exciting opportunity to demonstrate independence and responsibility for their own learning. 

Agency and Action in PYP


The core of student agency is integral to the PYP learning process and to the program's overarching outcome of international-mindedness. Through taking individual and collective action, students come to understand the responsibilities associated with being internationally-minded and to appreciate the benefits of working with others for a shared purpose. When students see tangible actions that they can choose to take to make a difference, they see themselves as competent, capable, and as active agents of change (Oxfam, 2015)

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