Curriculum

MYP

The IB MYP news

We have started our first academic year as an authorised International Baccalaureate World School. Being an IB school comes with benefits and responsibilities, and some of these responsibilities are our commitment to staff training to ensure your child receives the best education possible.

As a new cohort of staff joined us in August 2021, they had the opportunity to immerse themselves in a day’s training with Rizwan Khan, a prestigious IB educator. Our staff were introduced to the concepts of “International mindedness”, “Conceptual teaching and learning” and “service learning”, which are all integral components of the Middle Years Programme (MYP).

On the 6th December, Leigh Academy Blackheath was privileged to see their authorisation extended from MYP 1,2, to MYP 1,2,3. This means that all students in Y7-9 are officially taught the Middle Years Programme. To meet all requirements in the implementation of Year 3 and to develop our service to our community further, all students in Year 9 wil nowl take part in a community project during Modules 3 and 4.

We are looking forward to sharing with you the fantastic work our Year 9 students take part in, as well as the effort of our Year 7 and 8 students to be IB learners.

Ms Garcia

Assistant Principal - IBMYP Coordinator

Community projects

What is it?

Service learning is when you are actively involved in activities that have a positive impact on different communities.

As part of the Middle Years Program, students in Y9 need to take part in a Community Project. Students will be completing a project during modules 3 and 4 and will have the opportunity to make a difference in a community that they care about.

What does it look like?

Students will need to follow a five stage process as developed by Cathryn Berger Kaye in “The Complete Guide to Service Learning” (2010) which will lead their project, whilst they complete a project journal. The last stage of this project is “presentation” whereby students will have the opportunity to share their work with other classmates and the community.

There are four types of service learning: direct, indirect, advocacy and research. These are some examples of each type of service, which we encourage you to discuss with your child:

Direct service: Put together a mentoring programme for Y7 students to help them with reading or revision.
Indirect service: Create a “book of smiles” to help people when they are having a bad day.
Advocacy: Performing a play to raise awareness about bullying.

Research: Researching the effects of fizzy drinks on health and developing a campaign to inform others.