“Inquiry, as the leading pedagogical approach of the Primary Years Programme recognizes students as being actively involved in their own learning and as taking responsibility for that learning. PYP learning is approached with a spirit of inquiry.”

 (IBO, 2018)

As a learner in this workshop, you are invited to take this vision and choose to apply it to your own learning. To this end, you’ll be an “agentic learner”, a learner who nurtures their own agency, one who strives to make choices, have a voice and take ownership of your own professional learning.

Agenda August 1st/ 2025

Reflective Threads

• How is my understanding of PYP principles and practices evolving? 

• In what ways can I apply learning from this workshop in my own learning and teaching?

• How is agency supported and nurtured through this workshop? 

Conceptual Understandings:

Group Thermometer

Partner introductions: Who are we and why are we here?

Learning is a social activity. Much can be learned from other’s perspectives and experience. 

Think about the weeks prior to you coming to the Anglo.

• What have been some feelings you have felt about your arrival? 

• What have been you looking forward to? What have been some things your are scared of or anxious about?

Now think about the last few days, where we have welcomed you.

• What have we done to make you feel like you belong? How are you feeling now? What are you still anxious about or looking forward to? What has impressed you or called your attention about who we are as a school?

Our Values and Definition of High quality learning and teaching

Solidarity: It involves a clear awareness of the need of others, not only in the economic sphere, where members of the community recognize the social inequalities and undertake immediate action, but in a broader sense, identifying in the other, a person which you share success and failure and the sense of a common goal.

In groups discuss what would you see students doing in a school with that Mission, vision and values.

• What would they learn about? What kind of content would we see being taught in such classrooms?

• How would classrooms be arranged? How do you envision the learning spaces? What sort of display boards will we find?

• What sort of resources would you expect to see in classrooms?How would those be laid out? Student access?

• What kind of interactions would you expect to see among students, among students and teachers? 

Prepare a short presentation to the whole group 

IB educators help students to develop these attributes over the course of their IB education, and to demonstrate them in increasingly robust and sophisticated ways as they mature. The development of these attributes is the foundation of developing internationally minded students who can help to build a better world-

Teachers and students collaborate to identify appropriate learner profile attributes that are relevant and meaningful to specific units of inquiry. Different attributes may be relevant at different times for each student depending on, for example, personal learning goals, phases of development or skills focus.

This may include:

• when reading books, teachers and students can track the presence and development of learner profile attributes

• when engaging in a collaborative math inquiry, students can reflect on ways embodying (or not embodying) the attributes impacting the group’s learning

• when individual students set and reflect upon their learning goals or acknowledge a classmate’s contributions to a project, the learner profile attributes are useful tools.

Common language

Learning communities can use the learner profile attributes to develop a shared understanding and a common language across the programme.

This can be accomplished through:

• classroom essential agreements

• playground rules

• pastoral care

• school communications such as newsletters, displays in hallways and classrooms

• feedback on learning – both informal and as celebrated in reporting

• reflections on local and global issues. 

(International Baccalaureate 2018) 

The IB learner profile and international mindedness

Refer to the IB learner profile attributes and familiarize yourself with their definitions.  

Think about the last few days as you have arrived to the school. 

• What attributes have you had to develop during the past few days? How or why did you develop those?

• Which ones do you believe will you need to continue strengthening? How could you go about that?

• Brainstorm some ideas on how YOU could develop the attributes of the learner profile in your students.

The IB approaches to teaching and Approaches to learning and how we approach them at the Anglo?

The PYP Framework

The PYP offers an inquiry-based, transdisciplinary curriculum framework that builds conceptual understanding. It is a student-centred approach to education for learners aged 3-12 years. The PYP curriculum framework begins with the premise that students are agents of their own learning and partners in the learning process. It prioritizes people and their relationships to build a strong learning community.

PYP students use their initiative to take responsibility and ownership of their learning. By learning through inquiry and reflecting on their own learning, PYP students develop knowledge, conceptual understandings, skills and the attributes of the IB learner profile to make a difference in their own lives, their communities, and beyond.

The framework also emphasizes the central principle of agency through the recognition of the importance of fostering an individual's self-efficacy. Students with a strong sense of self-efficacy are active in their own learning and take action in their learning community. 

(IBO website www.ibo.org)

• What do you understand about Transdisciplinarity?

• Recall an experience where you were a learner and you felt it was really effective. What made it effective? 

• Recall an experience where you were teaching and you felt it was really effective. What made it effective? 

• What does a student need to be successful and a life long learner?

Transdisciplinarity

“Transdisciplinarity transcends subjects. It begins and ends with a problem, an issue or a theme. Students’ interests and questions form the heart of transdisciplinary learning. It is a curriculum-organizing approach where human commonalities rise to the top without regard for subject boundaries. Subjects become an instrument/tool/resource to explore a theme, problem or concept in depth. The result is a different or new organizing framework.” 

(Beane 1997; Klein 2006). (From principles into practice 2018)

Approaches to teaching

The approaches to teaching have been designed to give flexibility to educators as they devise, choose, and reflect on the teaching strategies that are suitable for their settings. In this inquiry we will explore how creating a dynamic, active, diverse, inclusive and internationally minded learning community supports the development of conceptual understanding. 

This is done when learning and teaching is:

Concept based inquiry: (based on inquiry and Focused on conceptual understanding)

Sorting - What is a concept?  What is a topic?

conflict, family, culture, minibeasts, change, fitness, human rights, China, persuasion, power, revolution, model, dinosaurs, cooperation, presidential elections, extinction, World War II, transportation, area and perimeter, evolution, the human body, verb conjugation, fractions, the rainforest, earthquakes, identity, water, citizenship, simple machines, laws and rules, probability

Belonging, environment, habitats, imagination, government, sustainability, etc

Approaches to Learning

It is also about developing affective and metacognitive skills, and about encouraging students to view learning as something that they “do for themselves in a proactive way, rather than as a covert event that happens to them in reaction to teaching” (Zimmerman, 2000, p. 65). Self-regulated learners have learned how to set learning goals, ask good questions, self-interrogate as they learn, generate motivation and perseverance, try out different learning processes, self-monitor the effectiveness of their learning, reflect on achievement and make changes to their learning processes where necessary (de Bruin et al., 2011; Wolters, 2011; Zimmerman and Schunk, 1989).

As you watch the video, note down the different strategies teacher use to develop ATL skills in their students.

What strategies could you use to develop those ATL skills? Discuss with a shoulder partner

Look at the units of inquiry for your grade level. 

Go the the PYP curriculum pack page and scroll down to your grade level.

• How do central ideas genuinely connect with the selected transdisciplinary theme, moving beyond a superficial link to explore a global issue?

• In what ways lines of inquiry effectively unpack the central idea, guiding students toward a deeper, conceptual understanding rather than a list of facts?

• How will you intentionally integrate content and skills from different subject areas within different units of inquiry to build a holistic and transdisciplinary learning experience for your students?

• What are the concepts (specified and additional) that will drive this unit, and how will they serve as a framework for students to explore, connect, and transfer their learning to new contexts?

• How will you ensure that the development of Approaches to Learning (ATL) skills is explicitly and intentionally addressed throughout the unit, empowering students to become more self-regulated and effective learners?

Exit ticket