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The IB PYP Exhibition! The big event that culminates the PYP for the children, where they get to showcase all of their learning of the Essential Elements! If you are an upper grades teacher, you either love it or you dread it! Regardless of how you feel about it, we cannot take away from the incredibly valuable experience it brings to all involved. Personally, I love it!

I’m really excited  to share this article with you. It is FULL of practical tips, a free video sharing steps through the PYPX and a valuable resource that I created specifically for the IB PYP Exhibition.

I was recently a guest speaker with Vasileios Iosifidis, The PYP Traveller, on You Tube. Being an experienced PYP teacher himself, Vasilis shares a TON of great stuff on his You Tube channel.  I have added his video for you, a few paragraphs down.

But first, whether you are experienced or brand

new to the Exhibition, I have created a tool...

I’m an avid believer in making maths an adventure of discovery and creation rather than simply an expected chore. By integrating maths into our units of inquiry and making it an authentic experience, we are dispelling the myth that maths is boring and we turn our learners into investigators, truth seekers and explorers! Far more exciting already, don’t you think?

I’m well aware of how tricky it can be to integrate maths into all of our units of inquiry and so there are several alternative routes that I turn to when the going gets tough, which I’ll be sharing soon in a future post. But for today, I want to share how picture books are one of the easiest ways to bring the adventure back to your maths lessons.

Here are some of my favourites that I’ve found provoke inquiry and are simple to slot into multiple units of inquiry, whilst covering many maths standards. Many of them are flexible enough to adapt for all ages. You can link directly to each book for...

The biggest question, when I’m planning an IB PYP unit of inquiry is, at what level is my class in terms of experience and initiative when it comes to inquiry? In other words, which level of student inquiry will I be planning around – structured inquiry, guided inquiry or open inquiry?

The biggest catastrophe that can happen to a teacher embarking on inquiry for the first time is to implement an open inquiry without fully understanding the level of her students’ independent inquiry skills. There aren’t many children who are new to the IB PYP that have been formally guided through the skills necessary for independent inquiry. This can result in confusion at best and frustration at the worst. Not to mention that moment when you just have to abandon the lesson and re-group. I know this, cos I’ve been there many a time! Haha!

We want to ensure that our inquiries are structured in such a way that will introduce strategies and guide and...

A brand new year is upon us once more! And a  new year is always a good time for self reflection. (I have spoken a lot about reflection within the IB PYP and offered multiple strategies that can be used in previous posts. You can read more about that further on.) But with this post, I’m focusing largely on self-reflection; developing reflective thinking skills within the children and ultimately bringing each child a greater awareness of their own Learner Profile and personal, social and emotional development.

With reflection having been removed from the IB key concepts and student agency being a key focus lately, I felt that there was a need for us to maintain this big idea of reflection throughout our learning environment and certainly within the process of inquiry based learning itself. I wanted my students to be able to understand the importance of reflective thinking and it’s role in self-assessment and the inquiry process, not to mention personal, social and...

Hello dear teachers! I’m excited to share this idea with you. It is really easy to implement and can be done with ANY age level. I call it the INQUIRY JAR. (I know, really imaginative, right?) Let’s get straight to it!

A few posts ago, I wrote about developing inquirers and the three stages that are CRUCIAL to this development; structured inquiry leading to guided inquiry before you finally have independent inquirers.  ( You can link to that article here if you like.) Well, this activity with the Inquiry Jar, is a great way to encourage the inquiry process and model what it looks like and sounds like as well as moving on to teaching higher level thinking skills through questioning and thought analysis. You can find this plus 9 more ideas for bringing inquiry into your classroom in my free guide. It also comes with another great, FREE activity.

Structured...

We hear incredible stories of kids, from schools all around the world, taking action and using their knowledge from inquiry to make an impact for the better. But how much of that action is truly student-led? How big does action have to be? Does it even matter if it isn’t student led? And how do we inspire the children to independently take action? Are those some of the questions that pop into your head when you hear about such wow-factor action? 

Well, never fear…..I’m here to shed some light on the matter and to dispel some of the doubt (and dare I say cynicism?) that may be whispering in your ear. I have an action plan ( and some free tools) to develop and inspire your class of future heroes! Read on…… 
Action, ideally, is the voice of the children. It is student agency at its finest. Action promotes a connection to learning. It’s a transferrable process that, surprise,...

I recently attended an IB ARMS ( Rocky Mountain Association of IB World Schools) symposium in Denver and found myself in an interesting conversation regarding student agency.  I think that the current buzz word student agency must be recognised for its role of bringing greater awareness to our role of giving the children more pertinent opportunities to use their agency. In other words, providing the children with more authentic chances to use their voice, make choices for themselves, both collectively and as individuals, and to encourage ownership for their own learning. So, let’s look at the area of assessment and how we, as the facilitators, can increase the children’s’ involvement with this part of their learning cycle.

Since this is a lengthy subject, I’m going to break it down into 2 parts. I will also be including free samples of assessment tools. If you’d like to follow along, please add your e mail...

Following on from my recent live webinar on Facebook, this week’s chat is looking at different approaches to the IB PYP Central Idea and how each method can benefit the learner in meaningful and effective ways within the inquiry process. I have added the video below.

When youre new or newish to the PYP, the jargon alone can be intimidating, nevermind what youre supposed to do with it all. When you are presented with a central idea that leaves you with the thoughts, ” Huh? What does that even mean?” , this is a huge clue that the central idea is, in my opinion, ugly! If you are struggling with it, how do you think the children will feel? Over the years I have found there to be 3 types of central ideas: the good, the bad and the ugly. Here is one UGLY example that stuck with me ( for obvious reasons). It was geared towards 7 & 8 year olds. I am not kidding!

“The relationships within a community can determine the structure and engagements of its...

Hello again! And welcome to the third part of our conversation of assessment in the IB PYP classroom.  If you’re just joining me, welcome to the end of this conversation about assessment and student agency. You can read parts 1 and 2 right here, if you want to keep it all in context.

Following on from part 2, which listed ten forms of inclusive assessment for an IB PYP classroom, I wanted to complete this 3 part conversation on assessment with ways to record the evidence gathered from assessment activities.

By gathering evidence about ongoing student achievement, the evidence can assist both teachers and students in making judgements about their progress and accomplishments of standards and outcomes. It also provides feedback about how each child can improve their skills and their learning. The following list of inclusive assessment activities can be used by teachers and students collaboratively...

Hello there! In this article, I will cover the different formats of a commonly used document of learning across the IB PYP: the student portfolio. I'll share my experience with the value and function of such a document and how to incorporate reflections across the content and the elements of the PYP framework.

Function: The Purpose

With the fact that every school has a responsibility to maintain evidence of students’ learning, the PYP Portfolio acts a source for collecting, recording and storing the evidence. The IB Primary Years Programme (PYP) emphasises student agency, inquiry-based learning, and holistic development and the student portfolio plays a crucial role in the PYP. While it is not mandatory, it is highly encouraged and considered an essential part of the programme.

The PYP portfolio serves as a source for collecting, recording, and storing evidence of students’ learning.

Its purpose is multifaceted:

• Documenting Learning: The portfolio...