The years of the MYP, from the ages of 11 to 16, are a critical period in the development of young people, and their success in school is closely related to their personal, social and emotional well-being. At a time when students are establishing identity and building self-esteem, the MYP provides an established framework that can motivate students and help them to achieve success. With its broad and balanced curricular framework, the MYP allows students to build on personal strengths and to embrace challenges in many disciplines. The MYP offers students opportunities to develop their potential, to explore their own learning preferences, to take appropriate risks, and to reflect on and develop a strong sense of personal identity. The design of the programme incorporates age-appropriate differentiation in teaching and learning from ages 11 to 16 and provides a bridge from primary education to further studies.

The MYP focuses on the inquiry cycle, a constructivist approach, which is an interplay between asking (inquiry), doing (action) and thinking (reflection), leading towards open classrooms where different views and perspectives are valued. Young people are empowered for a lifetime of learning, both independently and in collaboration with others.

Concept-based Curriculum

IGBIS values education more as a transformation of personal understanding and the collaborative construction of meaning, and less as the transmission of knowledge and rote memorisation of facts. Consequently, conceptual understanding is a significant and enduring goal for teaching and learning. Concepts represent the vehicle for students’ inquiry into issues and ideas of personal, local and global significance, providing the means by which the essence of a subject can be explored. A concept-based model is used in the MYP because it encourages students to:

• Process factual knowledge at a deeper intellectual level as they relate the facts to concepts and essential conceptual understandings.
• Create personal relevance, as they relate new knowledge to prior knowledge, and encourage understanding of cultures and environments across global contexts through the transfer of knowledge.
• Bring their personal intellect to the study as they use a key concept to personally focus on the unit topic in order to increase motivation for learning.
• Increase fluency with language as they use factual information to explain and support their deeper conceptual understanding.
• Achieve higher levels of critical, creative and conceptual thinking as they analyse complex global challenges, such as climate change, international conflicts and the global economy and create greater subject depth through the study of discipline-specific related concepts

Students in MYP at IGBIS study subjects in eight subject areas. Students are also involved in Service as Action and will undertake MYP projects in grades 8 and 10. The 8 subject areas are:

• Language and Literature
• Language Acquisition
• Individuals and Societies
• Sciences
• Mathematics
• Arts
• Design
• Physical and Health Education

MYP Projects

At IGBIS MYP students engage in both the Community Project in Grade 8 and the Personal Project in Grade 10. The Community Project and the Personal Project are known together as the MYP projects. MYP projects are student-centred and age-appropriate, and they enable students to engage in practical explorations through a cycle of inquiry, action and reflection. MYP projects help students to develop the attributes of the IB learner profile, and foster the development of independent, lifelong learners.

The Community Project focuses on community and service, encouraging students to explore their right and responsibility to implement service as action in the community. It also gives students an opportunity to develop awareness of needs in various communities and address those needs through service learning. The project may be completed individually or by groups of up to three students.

The Personal Project encourages students to practice and strengthen their approaches to learning skills, to consolidate prior and subject-specific learning, and to develop an area of personal interest. The Personal Project provides an excellent opportunity for students to produce a truly personal and often creative product/outcome and to demonstrate a consolidation of their learning in the MYP. Each student develops their project independently.

e-Assessments

eAssessments occur in the final year of the MYP and take the form of on-screen examinations in Language and Literature, Mathematics, Sciences, and Individuals and Societies; and e-Portfolio assessments in Language Acquisition, the Arts, Design, and Physical and Health Education. Students also complete an on-screen Interdisciplinary Learning eAssessment and an ePortfolio for the Grade 10 Personal Project. eAssessments are externally assessed, moderated and validated by the IB. Students who successfully complete all requirements for e-Assessment are awarded an MYP Certificate from the IB.