The Unit of Inquiries covered in Nursery were carefully planned so they are significant and relevant to the lives of the children. The transdisciplinary themes offer authentic learning opportunities for children to learn about themselves and the world around them. Inquiry through play has been the main drive for our Units and the children have developed social, self management and communications skills. The central ideas related to ‘Who we Are’ and ‘How we Organise Ourselves’ have supported the children to learn about identity, relationship, well-being and what it means to be part of a community. The unit, ‘How We Express Ourselves’ has looked at discovery, creativity and expression of ideas and feelings. Learning has been flexible and children have co-constructed their learning and transferred their ideas and knowledge to each unit. The skills developed throughout the year have enabled the children to make connections and take ownership of their learning. During our final unit, ‘Sharing the Planet’ we have observed responsible learners who can work collaboratively to care for their immediate environment and each other. It has been a wonderful year of discoveries in Nursery.

We are very excited to be embarking on our first Kindergarten field trip next week! This will be a wonderful way for our learners to extend their understanding of water and use their observations to find out more. We have had some fantastic questions raised during our class discussions, demonstrating the connections that the learners are making during this unit. Some of these include, “ Does the sunlight change the colour of the clouds?” and “ What sea creatures live in the midnight zone?” We continue to encourage the learners to share their questions and knowledge so we can discover more within our class. This unit has been a fantastic one for building on our Learner Profile attributes, particularly ‘knowledgeable,’ ‘thinkers’ and ‘communicators.’ Furthermore the learners have been using their knowledge to collaborate on tasks such as drawing maps, building sea creatures out of mobilo and writing questions which highlight their interests. A big focus across Kindergarten has been allowing the learners to exercise responsibility as they monitor how much water they are drinking. This has been fantastic for transferring knowledge between their Mathematical learning and Unit of Inquiry. We look forward to seeing and hearing more connections being made, after our field trip and over the next couple of weeks.

Throughout the year all the units of inquiry have a focus on different types of skills under the approaches to learning. During semester one there is a big focus on self- management skills, enabling and encouraging our learners to develop self through organisation. The responsibility to organise their own belongings, from remembering to take their water bottles to lunch and packing and unpacking their school bags when they arrive and before they go home. This continues throughout the year and progresses to setting achievable learning goals in reading and writing, to the responsibility of time management and taking agency in planning their own tasks. Semester two continues to build on and add to those skills, further developing what they have achieved over semester one. Our current UOI focuses on communication and social skills. Learners are currently learning to speak clearly as they express their ideas based on their chosen celebrations. This week especially but not limited to, our classes frequently have rich discussions during circle time. Diversity and Inclusion Week has given the learners the opportunity to express opinions demonstrating their social skills showing empathy and respect as they value ideas and beliefs of others. As the unit begins to come to close the learners are beginning to think about party planning. They are listening to others, sharing decision making and taking turns in order to create a celebration for all.

​​Last week we began our ‘How We Organise Ourselves’ unit, inquiring into how ‘People collaborate and organise themselves using systems’. We started with a fascinating provocation when the learners arrived at school after the long weekend to find all their classroom routines and systems removed. Thankfully it didn’t take too long for the children to agree that classroom structures and routines are very important and return class spaces to normal. To develop the learners understanding of systems, organisation and collaboration, they have been given a very exciting task to create an on-campus event where they can share their learning with parents. This will also require the learners to utilise skills and knowledge learned throughout the year to plan and execute the event successfully, as they send persuasive emails to management, organise logistics and activities, and create invitations. The learners decided their event would be a Light Mini-Exhibition as they are eager to share the scientific skills they learned in our last UOI.

Our final unit of the year, 'Where We Are in Place and Time', uses knowledge from our previous units to help us gain a deeper understanding of the lives of people from around the world and the opportunities and challenges that they face. Learners have been introduced to games, schools, and environments from different regions and have completed interviews with parents to see the similarities and differences of people living in a variety of environments. This unit allows them to use the skills and knowledge that they have gained across the Unit of Inquiries covered this year to help them think about the factors that can be seen as challenges and opportunities for people across the globe. The skills they have built over the year means that the learners are able to make deeper and more meaningful connections to the concepts covered. It is amazing to see how far the learners have come in their inquiries this year.

As part of the Primary wide transdisciplinary theme, 'How the World Works', our Year 4 learners are currently exploring the Central Idea, 'People apply their knowledge of forces to solve problems and assist in everyday life.' This Unit of Inquiry is giving learners the opportunity to find out about forces at work in the world around them - from a simple 'push' and 'pull' learners are investigating the effects of friction to the wonders of gravity, to how a bullet train moves. Learners are using their understanding of the laws of motion to help analyse ways to make their balances in gymnastics better stable and their speed and direction of movements more precise. In Art lessons, learners are applying their understanding of forces to construct mobiles that balance. Up in our Year 4 pod, there is a hive of activity as learners work in groups to construct some ingenious working models of simple machines. Learners are using their models to write explanatory accounts of how they work. Learners are focusing on the use of subject-specific vocabulary, cause and effect connective words; time connective sentence starters effectively. While constructing their models, earners have applied their mathematical knowledge when considering angles, weight and distance. The transdisciplinary nature of this Unit of Inquiry gives Learners a great opportunity to use and apply their skills from across the curriculum.

Our current central idea 'Exploration expands human understanding' is connected to the transdisciplinary theme Where we are in Place and Time. Our unit of inquiry engagements are intentionally planned and designed to spark interest, wonder and curiosity. Learners are excited to inquire into the answers to their questions and share their findings in different ways. Throughout the year learners have had many opportunities to develop their skills through the approaches to learning. In our this unit of inquiry learners have further developed their thinking and research skills as they have inquired into space exploration and will communicate their new understandings through our production performance. Our production is an opportunity for learners to take action, by participating in and contributing to a community activity. They are supporting each other as they practise their scenes and grow in confidence together as a collective group. Opportunities such as this bring everyone closer together. We are not far off now from our 'Night at the Museum' and look forward to sharing this with you on the 7th of June.

All roads lead to Exhibition!

Exhibition is a time for learners to explore an idea, concept or topic they are passionate about. Over the years, a PYP learner will develop the skills and passion to explore their own personal inquiry. In 6 (very short) weeks, they need to brainstorm what they would like to achieve, find resources, mentors and experts to help them and then put it all together in a showcase event with audience from 8 years old to ... well it isn't polite to say how old some of us are. Let's just say 'an adult audience'.

There have been challenges, frustrations and successes along their journey. And that is what Exhibition is. A journey of discovery which we hope will continue long after they leave Year 6.

We hope all of the parents of year 6 will be able to join us on this fantastic culmination to of their primary school journey.

COME AND JOIN US!

There is so much happening as we come towards the end of year six. It would be wonderful if you could join us to finish our journey.

Below is a brief overview of the upcoming events. We hope we will see you at school.

More information is located in the upcoming events link