In the Preschool and Primary at EIS, we view learning as a partnership between student, parent and our school. You can help your child by:

• Reading and talking about their posts on Toddle
• Maintaining regular contact with us
• Sharing books with your child
• Supporting your child’s mother tongue
• Making discussion of ideas, opinions and events a regular feature at home
• Working with your child when they use the Internet and/or books to find and make sense of information
• Offering your expertise to the class to support a unit of inquiry
• Attending information opportunities and parent workshops provided for parents
• Being familiar with the IB learner profile

EIS believes that the PYP curriculum framework fits the mission, philosophy and goals of our Primary and Pre-school. The curriculum is based on research and understanding about how children best learn and how their brains work. It allows us to have considerable flexibility in the choice of content and topics that our students will study. It connects our school to a wider international school network and an internationally respected educational organisation, thus requiring us to work towards continuous school improvement.

The International Baccalaureate (IB) learner profile describes a broad range of human capacities and responsibilities that go beyond academic success. They imply a commitment to help all members of the school community learn to respect themselves, others and the world around them.

Each of the IB’s programmes is committed to the development of students according to the IB learner profile. The profile aims to develop learners who are:

• Inquirers
• Knowledgeable
• Thinkers
• Communicators
• Principled
• Open-minded
• Caring
• Risk-takers
• Balanced
• Reflective

The goals of the PYP are essentially the same as our school’s goals, as reflected in our mission statement. However, the PYP allows us to achieve them more effectively. It demands a true partnership between students, teachers and parents in the school community and the global community.

Children are actively engaged in learning about issues and themes of universal significance. These are designed to allow students to become reflective and internationally minded; qualities that allow them to participate more fully in the world they will enter as adults. The PYP classroom is student-centred, they are encouraged and supported to be independent learners and critical thinkers, and learn to take appropriate socially responsible action.

Each year, classes work through a cycle of units of inquiry, the number completed in one year varies according to grade level. In the Preschool and and P1 it is four and from P2, six units of inquiry. The units may have a science, social studies, language, PSPE or arts focus. In addition, many subject areas of the curriculum can be linked to a unit of inquiry and single subject teachers often work with homeroom teachers to create a transdisciplinary approach to learning. This means that different subject areas are used to further the students’ understanding of the unit’s central idea. Every unit has a central idea which is a statement that encapsulates the desired learning, within the broad themes of Who We Are, How We Organise Ourselves, How We Express Ourselves, Sharing the Planet, Where We are Place and Time, How the World Works.

The IB offers a curriculum framework that transcends any one country’s national curriculum. Each IB school then develops their own curriculum based on the IB framework. The framework has rigour and is about supporting and guiding students so they develop enduring understandings. At EIS we have developed and continue to refine our curriculum using both the IB framework, and a variety of other international curriculum standards.

EIS has its own written curriculum in all academic subjects with specific learning targets and outcomes that students are expected to achieve. Student progress is tracked at several points throughout the year in each grade level using a variety of tools: Language Continuums, a Developmental Reading Assessment, end of semester mathematics assessment, ongoing assessment in units of inquiry with checklists, rubrics and regular anecdotal records.

The exhibition is an extended, in-depth project celebrating the culmination of a child’s learning experience in the PYP before they move on to the next stage in their education.Young learners conduct an in-depth inquiry into real life issues or challenges, and present their research, investigation and resulting action to the whole school community. Recent research into the impact of the PYP exhibition found it to be a “valuable and pivotal experience in the life of the schools, families and students who were involved.

The PYP has an action component, whereby students use their own initiative to demonstrate their commitment to what they have learned. Action often comes as the result of deep inquiry that becomes personal and is meaningful. At its most authentic, action occurs outside of the classroom – at home, or within the larger school or local community and can occur at any time.