As a new member of the Woodleigh community, I have spent the past four weeks observing, collaborating, and immersing myself in the life of the Junior School at both Minimbah and Penbank campuses. I have been struck by the energy and warmth of the learning environments, by the positive statements from the staff who explain that they ‘love coming to work each day,’ and by the joyful interactions that I’ve had with students

During my first tour for prospective families, one of the visitors observed that the same ideas were being explored in a few of the classrooms we had visited. Rod asked me to share the reasons for this and to explain a bit about the IB Primary Years Program with the group. My work with the classes and teachers meant I had knowledge of the ‘ideas’ the visitor was referring to and fortunately, it provided a wonderful link to help me explain the PYP. The ideas he had noticed were the concepts of responsibility and perspective. Responsibility and perspective are 2 of the 7 key concepts of the PYP. All year levels engage with all 7 of these key concepts each year.

During our tour, we saw Foundation students engaging with ‘responsibility’ when investigating communities and the people who work in them. They spoke of understanding things through different ‘perspectives’. In the Year 1 and 2 classrooms, the documented learning we had looked at on their walls reflected their unit of inquiry into ‘Who we are’ which explored the ‘perspectives’ of the diverse cultures in their class, and their unit inquiring into ‘Sharing the planet’ which explored our ‘responsibility’ when using Earth’s resources. In the Year 3 classroom, the students were engaged in conversation about a book they had read which explored the different ‘perspectives’ of life during early European settlement and the impact this had on indigenous Australians. The concepts of ‘responsibility’ and ‘perspective’ were everywhere!

When you are immersed in PYP education you use these concepts in your conversations every day. It is only when someone visits with fresh eyes and you are asked to articulate why this is, that the power of these 7 words becomes clear. By revisiting concepts each year, students deepen their understanding of these big ideas and build connections with what these look like in different contexts. As constructivist educators, we are constantly connecting learning and building on what the child already knows. This use and re use of language and ideas such as the key concepts, is an intentional, explicit part of the Primary Years Program.

Concepts enable connection across the disciplines and exploration of ideas across time and place. Students develop the attributes of caring and empathy by using and understanding perspective. They consider ways to take action by exploring ways they can demonstrate responsibility. These words are used in purposeful, powerful ways and the result is a child that has developed not only an understanding of the concepts but also the learner profile attributes. We are educating students to understand big ideas, to connect these and consider ways they can take action, to be, as the IB mission states, “knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world.”

Ask your child about these 7 key concepts of the PYP:

• Form

• Function

• Change

• Causation

• Connection

• Responsibility

• Perspective

You can read more about concept-based learning in the IB Primary Years Program here.

KAREN CHAUR
Director of Learning - Primary Years