International Primary Curriculm-any advice

[toomuchsand]

my ds (4) is in a school doing ipc (we had no choice as the co pay for it). I have no experience of brit curriclum schools- what difference does it make academically and behaviour? I ask as he was racing about at the park and another mum said ipc kids were wild and had too much freedom. is this true? and how does ipc fit with the brit if we go back to the UK? thanks

Do you mean the IB primary years programme?

Most systems at primary are broadly similar so going back to the UK isn't a huge problem. Discipline depends very much in the school and isn't associated with one curriculum or another really.

My sons primary school in London is doing the Ipc - it's a thematic way of teaching. He seems to be enjoying it.

IPC is very similar to the curriculum most UK schools use- subject content and skills are taught through topics. Some of the Early Years ones are 'Houses and Homes', 'Sand and Water', 'Animals'. Some Literacy and Maths will link in with the topics but lots taught in addition- reading and phonics etc. A learning through play approach. Shouldn't make any difference to behaviour, normal 4 year olds will be wild at times!

thanks, this is all very helpful:)

My DD did the IB early years thing from 6-10. She'd been at a school which followed the brit curriculum from 2-6. What stood out most for me was her reading. When she started at her school aged 6, some children were learning to form their letters. She was already reading books.
She's come back to England now. The only difference I've noticed is she is unable to tell you about Victorian schools since she missed that bit.

If you mean the IB PYP it uses themes across the curriculum so you may study Transport and it be used to teach maths (doing a traffic survey for example) , geography, creative writing, art and so on. What we found was that is was very much a catalyst for lessons, with lots of games and activities but did n't focus on the more formal fundamentals of maths and literacy. Consequently ds lacked some of the basics (like spelling) when he returned to UK at 7 and this dogged him for several years affecting his confidence and requriing learning support (also didn't help that his learning style would have been better suited to a more structured approach and he is dyspraxic too). In terms of discipline I didn't think it was a significant problem but kids did get to choose what they would do to an extent and there was much more movement during "lessons" but you may find that there is a more relaxed attitude towards child discipline with less parental intervention anyway depending on the country you live in (maybe more so mainland Europe than China or ME)