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The Primary Years Programme at Quarry Bay School

QBS is a candidate school for the International Baccalaureate Organization Primary Years Program (PYP) this means that we are in a trial implementation period. We started our PYP journey in 2007 and since then we have been putting into place all the processes and resources needed to deliver the programme, including the training of teachers and the development of the curriculum.

We had our pre-authorization visit in March 2009 and this year we are refining our units of inquiry and ensuring that everything is in place for our authorization visit which will take place in May 2010. After this visit, if we achieve all the standards set out in the IB documentation, we will become an authorized IB World school.

How do children learn at QBS?

Children develop their knowledge, skills, concepts, attitudes and competencies through structured inquiry. We start from children’s existing level of learning and build on their strengths, experiences, languages and cultures.We encourage children to become independent learners and critical and creative thinkers who feel empowered to take action.

Class teachers in each year group work as a collaborative team, supported by specialist teachers in the areas of Performing Arts, Physical Education, Information Literacy and Mandarin to provide a transdisciplinary curriculum.

What is the curriculum?

The curriculum is made up of three parts which can be expressed as three open ended questions:

What do we want to learn?
The written curriculum
This includes:
  • Scope and sequence documents - these are a list of all the objectives we think our students need to learn.
  • Programme of Inquiry - This is the overview of all units of inquiry the students will engage in over 6 years at QBS
  • Units of Inquiry - These are the 6 detailed planners which make up each year group's programme
How best will we learn it?
The Taught Curriculum
This includes:
  • Learning through structured inquiry
  • Learning skills
  • Developing attitudes
  • Understanding concepts
  • Learning knowledge
  • Developing the attributes of the learner profile
  • Taking action
How will we know what we have learned?
The Assessed Curriculum
This includes:
  • Formative assessment - finding out what students know in order to plan the next steps in learning
  • summative assessment - the culmination of teaching and learning where students demonstrate what they have learned
  • Recording - how we collect and analyse evidence of learning
  • Reporting - how we communicate information about learning

The curriculum framework consists of five essential elements:

  • Concepts
  • Knowledge
  • Skills
  • Attitudes
  • Action

The knowledge component is developed through inquiries into six transdisciplinary themes of global significance, supported and balanced by six subject areas.

Transdisciplinary Themes

Subject Areas

Who We Are

Where We Are in Place and Time

How We Express Ourselves

How We Organise Ourselves

How the World Works

Sharing the Planet

Language

Mathematics

Social Studies

Personal, Social & Physical Education

Arts

Science

This diagram shows how all of these elements fit together to develop the curriculum framework.

At the heart of the curriculum is the Learner Profile which is a set of attributes that the IBO and QBS believe are demonstrated by internationally minded people. All members of the QBS community are encouraged to model these attributes and foster their development in others.

Information on this page was taken in part from : "Making the PYP Happen" 2007
For further information, please visit: www.ibo.org

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QBS Programme Of Inquiry - April 2010 [short version].pdf182.65 KB