About International Baccalaureate
Primary Years Program
As an instructional team, we have begun the process of creating our Program of Inquiry—the heart of an International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program. We have started by making Central Ideas for the transdisciplinary theme of “How We Express Ourselves”. We will then move on to the transdisciplinary theme of “How We Organize Ourselves”. Our goal is to have two planners, which take approximately 6 weeks each to teach, ready for implementation by the third trimester of this year. Our trimesters last 12 weeks, so two planners per trimester will fit nicely. Then, during the spring trimester, we will plan two more. These will be implemented in the fall trimester of next year. The final two will be planned in the fall of next year and implemented in the winter of 2010.
ii. Note the use of the prefix “trans-” in the word “transdisciplinary” from the above paragraph. The prefix “trans” literally means “beyond”. “Transdisciplinary”—a word invented by IB—is used instead of “multidisciplinary” or “interdisciplinary” in IB schools for a specific reason. Both “multi” and “inter” exist in a paradigm in which knowledge is still derived from disciplines (or content areas). However, we are not teaching interdisciplinary units (between disciplines) or multidisciplinary units (many disciplines); we are teaching children to see learning as a transdisciplinary process that happens beyond the scope of disciplines or content areas.
Learn more about the Primary Years Program at the IBO website.
Learn more about the Middle Years Program at the IBO website.