Middle Years Programme
The IB Middle Years Programme (MYP) curriculum is designed specifically for international students aged 11 to 16. It provides a framework of academic challenge that encourages students to embrace and understand the connections between traditional subjects and the real world, become critical and reflective thinkers and develop the qualities and attributes of internationally-minded global citizens. The MYP curriculum was introduced at IST in 1998.
Middle Years Programme Curriculum
The MYP curriculum aims to help students develop their personal understanding, their emerging sense of self and responsibility in their community. Teaching and learning in the MYP is underpinned by the concepts below.
Teaching and Learning Using Global Contexts
These provide students the opportunity to learn through investigating authentic settings, circumstances and events, giving meaning to their learning and helping them to see purpose and relevance in it. There are six global contexts in the MYP curriculum:
- Identities and relationships
- Personal and cultural identity
- Orientations in space and time
- Scientific and technical innovation
- Fairness and development
- Globalization and sustainability
Conceptual Understanding
Concepts are big ideas that have relevance within specific disciplines and across subject areas. In the MYP curriculum, students use concepts as a vehicle to inquire into issues and ideas of personal, local and global significance and examine knowledge holistically. The MYP curriculum prescribes 16 key interdisciplinary concepts along with related concepts for each discipline.
Approach to Learning
Carrying on from the transdisciplinary skills of the Primary Years Programme (PYP) curriculum, a unifying thread throughout all MYP curriculum subject groups, our ESP Weeks, Extended Homeroom and Take Action Tuesdays, approaches to learning (ATL) provide the foundation for independent learning and encourage the application of the student’s knowledge and skills in unfamiliar contexts. Developing and applying these social, thinking, research, communication and self-management skills helps students learn how to learn.
ATL involves helping students acquire the skills necessary for them to become independent, lifelong learners who can also collaborate with others. They provide a common language that students and teachers can use to reflect on and articulate on the process of learning.
ATLs are organized into five major categories:
- Communication
- Social skills
- Self-management
- Research
- Thinking
Personal Project
In the final year (Grade 10) of the MYP, IST students are required to present the Personal Project – a significant body of work produced by the student over an extended period. It represents the successes and strengths of a student’s learning throughout their MYP experiences. Personal Projects revolve around a challenge that motivates and interests individual students (e.g. making a unique musical instrument, organizing an event or investigating the impact of tourism on Tanzania).
MYP Curriculum Subjects
The MYP curriculum comprises eight discrete subject groups: sciences, arts, design, mathematics, individuals and societies, language and literature, language acquisition and physical and health education.
Service as Action
IB Learners strive to be caring members of the community who demonstrate a personal commitment to service and act to make a positive difference to the lives of others and to the environment. Service as action in the MYP is an essential component of the IB continuum including both within and outside subject opportunities, leading toward a set of developmentally appropriate learning outcomes. All our students participate in service experiences through the Take Action Tuesday programme, the ESP Week and possibly within subjects.
Through the IB Learner Profile, subject study, key concepts, global contexts, approaches to learning, the personal project and service learning, the MYP curriculum presents knowledge as an integrated whole, emphasizing acquiring skills and self-awareness, the development of personal values and authentic action. As a result, our MYP here at IST aims to prepare students to be successful in school and to be active, lifelong learners.
Students completing the final year of MYP in 2019 at IST will receive an IST MYP Record of Achievement.
More information about the MYP curriculum can be found in the IST MYP Programme Guide or in the official IB subject brief (note, IST does not participate in the eAssessment programme).