Primary Years Program

Inquiry-based Learning

The leading pedagogical approach of the PYP is inquiry-based learning which allows your child to be actively involved in his or her own learning and to take responsibility for that learning.  Inquiry is the process that moves learners to a new and deeper level of understanding.  It involves the synthesis, analysis and manipulation of knowledge, whether through play or through more formally structured learning. Inquiry involves:

• Exploring, wondering and questioning

• Experimenting and playing with possibilities
• Making connections between previous learning and current learning
• Making predictions and acting purposefully to see what happens
• Collecting data and reporting findings
• Clarifying existing ideas and reappraising perceptions of events
• Deepening understanding through the application of a concept
• Making and testing theories
• Researching and seeking information
• Taking and defending a position
• Solving problems in creative ways

Concept-based Learning

Central to the philosophy of the PYP is the principle that structured inquiry is a powerful vehicle for learning that promotes understanding, while challenging your child to engage with significant ideas. The PYP framework includes eight key concepts that provide the underlying structure for the exploration of content throughout the program. These key concepts include:

• Form: What is it like? 
• Function: How does it work?
• Causation: Why is it like it is? 
• Change: How is it changing? 
• Connection: How is it connected to other things? 
• Perspective: What are the points of view? 
• Responsibility: What is our responsibility? 
• Reflection: How do we know? 

Transdisciplinary Learning

Our PYP curriculum is arranged and taught through large, cross-curricular units of study known as Units of Inquiry.  Throughout the Elementary School, these Units of Inquiry are arranged under six themes that are explored transdisciplinary across different subject areas.  Our program offers a balance between learning about or through the different subject areas, and learning beyond them.

• Who We Are 
• Where We Are in Place and Time 
• How We Express Ourselves 
• How the World Works 
• How We Organize Ourselves 
• Sharing the Planet

These themes are explored transdisciplinary across subjects that follow a scope and sequence and place importance on the construction of meaning. Conceptual understandings and learner outcomes are given for each phase in the learning continuum. The subjects are as follows:

1. Language

2. Mathematics

3. Social Studies

4. Arts

5. Science

6. Personal, social and physical education