PYP Enhancements

As a PYPC the onus is often on us to support and share best practice. I am continually looking for ways to offer staff agency. As a school we have been working through the PYP enhancements, to empower staff voice each week a learning community took on responsibility for planning and sharing a learning experience to develop an understanding some of the PYP Enhancements.

The specialist teachers shared the importance of technology in the classroom as outlined by the PYP Enhancements. Using the Clips app they supported staff to construct the understanding that leaning is both about and through technology in an IB setting. 

Our prep learning community shared The Early Learner An exploration of sound symbol relationship, tuning in with examples of Investigations.

In the early years at Trinity students learning is constructed in an authentic play based environment. Invitations to play, drawn from the UOI are offered. Students are front loaded with a Learner Profile, ATL or LOI focus at the beginning of Investigation time, and at the close are encouraged to share wonderings, or reflect when they utilised the Learner Profile or ATL.  

Year 1/2 teachers shared about the PYP Enhancement document focusing on Inquiry. Through a variety of thinking routines, including a Frayer model we developed a shared understanding that inquiry is authentic, honours studnent agency – voice, choice, ownership and that play, problem-based learning, collaboration, experimentation, and explicit teaching all have a place within well-considered inquiry-based learning experiences.

Learner Agency was the focus in Year 3/4, this has been a big pedagogical push across our school in 2019. Each teacher shared real life examples of student agency in their classroom. Lots of staff resonated with the maths groups agency example shared. Jo offers math hands on groups to support and front load students, along with a variety of hand on learning experiences. Students reflect daily, within and across units and choose to work either with the front loading group, or applying the knowledge in another, or teaching others in another.

Year 5/6 teachers shared about how they have been using Solo Taxonomy, based on research by Biggs and Collis to support students’ understanding of increasing complexity within an inquiry. Using a fantastic infographic from Seisen International School in Japan staff shared how these activities can support students congnition of developing complexity within inquiries.

https://resources.ibo.org/pyp?