All schools wishing to be recognised as IB (International Baccalaureate) World Schools needs to go through the intensive authorisation process.
Crawford International Preparatory schools are now authorised to offer the IB Primary Years Programme (PYP).
The IB is a global organisation with its head office located in The Hague, Europe. The purpose of this organisation is to develop internationally-minded people who recognise their humanity and shared guardianship of the planet and choose to make the world a better place locally, regionally or globally.
The PYP (Primary Years Programme) is an educational framework, driven by conceptual understandings that capture future-focused approaches and ways of thinking, being and acting as an internationally-minded citizen.
The IB programmes are divided into four core phases depending on school structures:
- PYP for 2 to 12-year olds
- Middle Years Programme (MYP) for 11 to 16-year olds
- Diploma Programme (DP) for 16 to 19-year olds, as well as a career’s certification offering.
These International Baccalaureate programmes are active in over 5 200 schools globally providing a network of over 70 000 professional educators engaging in discussions around teaching, learning, innovation and application, which continues to enhance and extend the exceptional IB educational offering.
The PYP still encompasses the same subject areas we’re familiar with, but the way this is packaged, presented, taught and inquired into, is unique. The term used to describe it is transdisciplinary, where all subject areas relevant to each unit of learning are integrated under a broad conceptual understanding being explored over a period of five to seven weeks.
PYP in Practice
The programme is explored over five to seven weeks and incorporates relevant local and global issues into the curriculum, asking students to look at six related, transdisciplinary themes and to consider the links between them.
These themes include:
- Who We Are
- Where We Are in Place and Time
- How the World Works
The programme also supports students’ efforts to construct meaning from the world around them by:
drawing on their prior knowledge, providing provocation through new experiences, creating and delivering units of learning that are interconnected and focused on being relevant in the world of today and, providing opportunities for reflection and consolidation.
The PYP transdisciplinary framework encourages connections across learning and teaching as a means to raise students’ awareness for the relevance of their learning to their reality. The units of inquiry that students have been engaging in, are transformed for topics into exploring conceptual understandings, for example:
Instead of learning about “water” as a topic, students inquire into how “people depend on and need to conserve earth’s limited resources”
Crawford International Schools choose IB PYP because:
The programme encourages students to inquire through natural curiosity in a collaborative environment.
The programme assists students to become more confident communicators by ensuring they learn more than one language, share their understandings in a variety of multi-model approaches (verbal, written, digital, face-to-face, pictorial, etc.)
It assists them in the ability to self-reflect; student agency with voice and choice; and ultimately the expectation to consider their steps needed to progress in their learning.
The staff at all our Crawford International Preparatory schools continuously receive and attend professional development (PD) offered by the International Baccalaureate head office.
IB head office appoints and organises workshop leaders and IB trainers, as well as from the Head of IB: ADvTECH South Africa, Traci-Salter Willis and the IB PYP Coordinators appointed at every school.
