The PYP emphasizes the importance of students making connections between their experience and the incremental pieces of new information they encounter. The programme supports the students’ struggles to gain understanding of the world and to learn to function comfortably within it, to move from not knowing to knowing, to identifying what is real and what is not real, to acknowledging what is appropriate and what is not appropriate. To do this, the students must integrate a great deal of information and apply this accumulation of knowledge in a cohesive and effective way. The subject-specific bodies of knowledge, together with the transdisciplinary themes, provide a comprehensive, well-balanced curriculum that requires students to reflect on their roles and responsibilities and to participate fully in the learning process. The concept-driven nature of the PYP—both transdisciplinary and subject based—helps the teacher to make the classroom a stimulating and provocative place, where the student’s point of view, supported by knowledge, skill, reflection and understanding, is both valued and made useful.

At CCIS the PYP section of the school is governed by the PYP Head and carefully constructed and monitored by the PYP Curriculum Coordinator. We demonstrate a commitment to the Primary Years Programme by delivering a curriculum framework that is grounded in constructivism, inquiry, and concept-based learning. These approaches promote learning and teaching that develops critical-thinking skills.