Primary Years Programme (PYP)

What is the IB Primary Years Programme (PYP)?

The PYP curriculum is a student-centered approach to education for children aged 3-12. The framework begins with the premise that students are agents of their own learning and partners in the learning process. It prioritizes people and their relationships to build a strong learning community. PYP students use their initiative to take responsibility and ownership of their learning. By learning through inquiry and reflecting on their own learning, PYP students develop knowledge, conceptual understandings, skills and the attributes of the IB learner profile to make a difference in their own lives, their communities and beyond.

The framework emphasizes the central principle of agency, which underpins the three pillars of school life:

• the learner
• learning and teaching
• the learning community

The IB learner profile in the PYP

The IB learner profile represents a broad range of human dispositions, capacities and traits that encompass intellectual, personal, emotional and social growth. Developing and demonstrating the attributes of the learner profile is an expression of what the IB means by international-mindedness. The IB learner profile permeates all facets of school life in the PYP. All members of the learning community from the youngest learners to school leaders to parents, educators and beyond, have a responsibility to be guided by and demonstrate a commitment to the development of the IB learner profile attribute

Informed by the values described in the learner profile, an IB education:

• focuses on learners—the IB’s student-centred programmes promote healthy relationships, ethical responsibility and personal challenge
• develops effective approaches to learning and teaching—IB programmes help students to develop the knowledge, dispositions and skills needed for both academic and personal success
• works within global contexts—IB programmes increase understanding of languages and cultures, and explore globally significant ideas and issues
• explores significant content—IB programmes offer a curriculum that is broad and balanced, conceptual and connected

The PYP is designed to focus 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 subject areas, as well as approaches to learning (ATL) skills. The PYP is flexible enough to accommodate the demands of most national or local curriculums and provides the best preparation for students to engage in the IB Middle Years Programme (MYP)

The IB Primary Years Programme

• acknowledges learner agency and the importance of self-efficacy to enable students to become partners in the learning process
• addresses students’ academic, social and emotional well-being
• encourages students to develop independence and to take responsibility for their own learning
• supports students’ efforts to gain understanding of the world and to function comfortably within it
• helps students establish personal values as a foundation upon which international mindedness will develop and flourish
• provides the opportunity to learn more than one language from the age of seven

The six subject areas identified within the PYP are:

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

The PYP is organized around the six transdisciplinary themes. Transdisciplinary learning in the PYP conveys learning that has relevance between, across and beyond subjects and transcends borders connecting to what is real in the world.

Through the six transdisciplinary themes, PYP students learn to appreciate knowledge, conceptual understandings, skills and personal attributes as a connected whole. They can reflect on the significance of their learning to take meaningful action in their community and beyond. Through this process of learning in the PYP, students become competent learners, self-driven to have the cognitive, affective and social tools to engage in lifelong learning.