IB primary years programme, what exactly is this?

[ConfusedAboutStatements]

Ok, so I am embarrassed to say that I didn't know that my child's school follows the primary years programme instead of the traditional curriculum.

So what exactly is it, I know it is supposed to help children become global citizens but what does it mean exactly?

My DS is happy there and has made excellent progress over the last year in reading bug not so much in writing. He has ASD and a specific learning difficulty that makes reading and writing challenging for him.

Does this sound like a good school for a child with learning difficulties?

I don't know how I missed that it had a different teaching method to the norm in state schools. The school is rated as a good school by ofsted and is is also the primary school that I attended and is very close which is the main reason i send him there.

[ConfusedAboutStatements]

Oh the school has IB world school status according to their website? Still none the wiser!

[SugarPlump]

Does this help www.ibo.org/pyp/curriculum/index.cfm

[SugarPlump]

My link is from the ib organisation website

[ConfusedAboutStatements]

Thankyou SugarPlump I have read that and understand the idea of the programme, and the idea sounds great, but I'm wondering whether it works out that way in practice?

Is there much difference between the PYP and the national curriculum or is it all very similar?

[toomuchicecream]

Unless the school is an academy or a free school then it has to teach the National Curriculum. But the national curriculum leaves a lot of scope for schools to decide how they deliver it. I don't know anything about the PYP but I would assume it's one of several schemes out there which schools can choose to buy in to help them in the delivery of the national curriculum.

[SugarPlump]

World schools tend to be private schools, toomuch like free schools, they've always been entitled to chose their own cirriculum.

PYP is very little like the NC

[ConfusedAboutStatements]

It's a state school, so it's good to know that they still have to fulfil the national curriculum if that is the case. It seems that there are only a couple of state schools following PYP, I do wonder why.

The school has gone from requiring improvement and one step from failing to a good school since they started the PYP so it must have been a good move. I just need to research a bit I think to try and figure out if it is the right thing for my child.

[LIZS]

pyp is a thematic structured programme called Units of Enquiry. So for example one term it might be Transport and all subjects will relate in some way to that (ie traffic survey in maths, writing about a journey etc). They can't do true IB if they follow NC though as IB is child centred learning and less measured. Not sure it takes much to get the IB World Status .

[SugarPlump]

Ahh that's why I presumed it was a private school because I knew TrUe PYP and the NC we're not that compatible so thanks for the clarification LIZS

[Alana1975]

My daughter is in the international school which follows PYP. I think on paper the approach sounds great but in reality ( maybe it is not properly implemented in our school) this system, from my point of view, doesn't work. I think the teaching is very chaotic and too much emphasis is put on independent learning and research which is not always suitable for smaller children. All the subjects are influenced by the unit of inquiry ( a theme, for example, How we express ourselves) including PE and mathematics, which I find totally unnecessary and counterproductive. They don't teach science as a separate subject as well because it is integrated with the unit of inquiry.

[Briocheeater]

I want to warn you about PYP. Made similar experience. Chose school which had traditional curriculum all looked good. To find when we joined they had just switched to PYP. I'd never heard of it.
At first it all sounded great child led, at least on same academic level as normal curriculum. But at end of the first year we had a parent conference. This is part of PYP. Dd showed a "portfolio" of work and had to explain. I have never seen so much rubbish in my life. The science (which isn't covered in PYP as a subject at all) part involved making a stick man skeleton with bits of straw, this was the science element of the "unit of inquiry".
PYP uses all these names and fancy terms to hide the fact that there is no real academic content. You will hear a lot about framework and other curriculums being rigid, " you just don't understand the philosophy".
At the end of the day. Dd went from being top of a normal school in UK year out in PYP, no progress, now bottom of year of uk peers. History, Geography, Science are simply not covered. Little writing was done, Maths was at level of previous year in Normal school, literally a whole year, bright child nothing learned. Questions about "what is taught" what level compared to normal curriculum is target, how is progress tested went unanswered. Another parent made a good analogy......it's like a cult, like Scientology. People who implement it are brainwashed, utterly convinced it's the best. People were bought into the school to implement it.
I am sure in some schools with clever dedicated teachers it could work, however it is also very easy to hide behind the lack of structure and find your child knows nothing.
Be aware and monitor closely what is really going on. Don't do what I did and presume it is all good, then get a shock.

[Alana1975]

Briocheeater, 100% agreed on what you wrote. Most of the parents at our school are moaning about PYP. However, we have no choice over here so we have to put up with it. I had to tutor my daughter myself ( and English is not my fisrt language) to make sure she passes 10+ deferred to Kingston grammar and she did.

[LIZS]

PYP if used as part of the overall IB curriculum, leading to Middle Years and IB itself, is fine as eventually the earlier omissions are covered. However it is out of step with UK primary, ie. less consistent in teaching of basic skills and lacking a national and religious context, so issues arise when transferring from one to the other.