IB - International Baccalaureate:

A global network of schools, educators, students and parents whose mission is "to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better world through intercultural understanding and respect."

IBNA - International Baccalaureate North America: The North American and Caribbean region of IB, with its central office in New York, NY. The other three IB regions are: IBLA - Latin America (Mexico, Central and South America), IBAP - Asia and the Pacific, and IBAEM - Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

PYP - Primary Years Program: A transdisciplinary framework of international education for students ages 3-12 designed to foster the development of the whole child.

MYP - Middle Years Program: A program of international education designed to help

students ages 11-16 develop active learners and internationally minded young people who can empathize with others and pursue lives of purpose and meaning. The programme empowers students to inquire into a wide range of issues and ideas of significance locally, nationally and globally. The result is young people who are creative, critical and reflective thinkers.

DP - Diploma Program: A challenging two-year program of international education for students aged 16 to 19 that leads to a qualification that is widely recognized by the world's leading universities.

Curriculum: In an IB school, "curriculum is all those student activities, academic and non-academic, for which a school takes responsibility, since they all have an impact on student learning". The curriculum of an IB school consists of three interrelated parts: the written, learned and taught curriculum.

Learner Profile: A set of attributes, with universal value across cultures, that define an internationally-minded student and a graduate of an IB school.

Essential Elements of the PYP: Knowledge, concepts, skills, attitudes and action that foster the development of the whole child and form the PYP written curriculum.

Concepts: Mental constructs or "frames of mind" that are universal, timeless, abstract and transferable,

PYP Key Concepts: Broader concepts that can be applied to all subject areas and serve as an umbrella to group sets of related concepts.

Related Concepts: Concepts which are contained under the PYP Key Concepts and are more specific to certain subject areas,

Transdisciplinary: Broad knowledge, skills and understandings that transcend the boundaries of the traditional subject areas and yet can be applied to learning within any of them.

Approaches To Learning: Broad groups of skills which can be applied within and across all subject areas. These include thinking skills, research skills, communication skills, self-management skills and social skills.

Transdisciplinary Themes: Universal themes, with relevance within and across the traditional subject areas, and within and across cultures, that define the body of lasting knowledge valued in a PYP school.

POI - Program of Inquiry: A collaboratively-developed framework for inquiry, with the purpose of allowing students to explore six universal themes of knowledge, which forms the core of a school's published PYP written curriculum.

UOI - Units of Inquiry: Transdisiplinary units, structured around a conceptual "central idea", that empower students to develop a lasting understanding of the knowledge contained under the PYP transdisiplinary themes, subject-area content and local/state standards.

PYP Planner: A document, provided by IB, that teachers must use to collaboratively plan and reflect upon the PYP units of inquiry contained within a school's Program of inquiry.

Central Idea: An enduring understanding that integrates conceptual understanding and factual knowledge and promotes student inquiry into a transdisciplinary theme.

Lines of Inquiry: These clarify the central idea and define the scope of a PYP unit of inquiry.

Essential Agreements: Agreed upon norms, guidelines and procedures within a school between schools regarding implementation of the PYP. Examples include essential agreements about student portfolios, updating our Program of Inquiry, and how student demonstration of the Learner Profile is reported to parents.

Student Portfolio: A collection of student work that demonstrates "success, growth, higher-order thinking, creativity, assessment strategies and reflection". A student's PYP portfolio "is a celebration of an active mind at work".