Educational Programs

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PROGRAM

The Primary Years Program (PYP) is for to students 3 to 11 years old who relate to the world in a direct and interactive manner since this program promotes an active focus of teaching through which they build meanings by starting with the experience they have in the social and physical world that surrounds them.

It is based on the inter-relation of the development and learning processes which occur in the students and the curriculum framework promotes the development of concepts in every specific environment of the subjects.

The six trans-disciplinary issues are the distinctive characteristic of the Primary Years Program of the IB. These issues are the reference framework for the teacher´s plan, for the subjects and for the inquiry program. The inquiring activity is the guiding axis. The six issues are:

• Who we are
  An inquiry into what it means to be human.
• Where we are in time and space
  An inquiry into spatial and temporal orientation: local and global perspective.
• How we express ourselves
  An inquiry into the ways in which we discover and express our ideas.
• How the world works
  An inquiry into the natural world and its laws; the interaction between the natural world and human societies.
• How we organize ourselves
  An inquiry into the interconnectedness of human-made systems and communities.
• How we share the planet
  An inquiry into rights and responsibilities in the struggle to share finite resources with other people and with other living things.

It is through the trans-disciplinary issues and the disciplines that we find the fundamental elements of PYP: Acquiring knowledge, comprehension, developing skills and attitudes, and carrying out actions.

These elements are integrated so that the students can acquire pertinent and transcending knowledge, and relate to previously acquired knowledge and foster in them an international mentality.

Skills

The construction of meaning and understanding is complemented with the acquisition and application of skills.