Teaching and Learning Environment in the Primary Years Programme

The PYP curriculum framework begins with the premise that PYP students are agents of their own learning and partners in the learning process.

The PYP curriculum recognizes learners’ innate potential to inquire, question, wonder and theorize about themselves, others, and the world around them.

The IBPYP consist of 6 themes which encourage students to research, discuss, challenge, share, and present their ideas in relation to their own lives and in the medium of both Arabic and English.

1. Who We Are
2. Where We Are in Place and Time
3. How We Express Ourselves
4. How the World Works
5. How We Organise Ourselves
6. Sharing the Planet

Specific Islamic and Social Studies lessons encourage students to be proud of who they are, while celebrating their own culture, values and beliefs.

The Primary Years Programme (PYP) also focuses on key concepts and world issues that empower students to become global citizens, whilst providing them with values and dispositions for lifelong learning and the life skills to sustain them as the leaders of the future.

Our students are placed at the centre of learning and teaching. They will learn through authentic inquiry, supported by a secure framework for learning as outlined in the IBPYP. Inquiry based learning enhances learning for all students by engaging them in activities that respond to particular interests, learning needs, strengths, and preferences. It is effective in supporting and challenging the full range of ability levels in the classroom. Students develop a genuine and enthusiastic desire for learning; learn how to learn and have fun along the way.

Students have the flexibility to adopt, adapt and extend sub-skills most relevant to their abilities as early learners and primary aged students. Some examples of sub-skills include:

• Thinking – Critical, creative, transfer
• Research – Ethical, media and information literacy
• Communication – Listening, speaking, interpreting
• Social – Interpersonal, social and emotional intelligence
• Self-management – Mindfulness, time management, organisation

The IBPYP at Dar Al Marefa

The International Baccalaureate Curriculum PYP is taught through carefully orchestrated inquiry. Learners are presented with the resources, opportunities and the facilities to be able to research and respond themselves, supported by skillful adult interventions, making the learning real and interesting.

Play, problem-based learning, collaboration, experimentation, and explicit teaching all have a place within well-considered inquiry-based learning experiences. Students can explore transdisciplinary themes or subject-specific knowledge to help them become critical and creative thinkers, researchers, collaborators and communicators.

By giving students the freedom to share their learning through a variety of recording and reporting methods, varying from planned ‘student centres’ to project-based inquiries, learners build their skills throughout the inquiry and then showcase their own understanding through the Grade 5 PYP Exhibition.