From this year all
Crawford Preparatory Schools
have offered the International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years Programme (PYP).
Traci Salter-Willis (M.Ed.); Head of IB: ADvTECH South Africa, ADvTECH Academic Strategic Development Advisor and Regional Director: Tournament of Minds: South Africa explains:
The IB is a global organisation with its head office in The Hague, Europe. Programmes are divided into four core phases depending on school structures: PYP for three to 12 years old, MYP for 11 to 16 years old, DP for the 16 to 19 years old, as well as a careers certification offering.
“These programmers are currently active in over 6500 school phases across the globe, providing an incredibly powerful network of professional educators engaging in discussions around teaching, learning, innovation and application, which continues to enhance and extend the exceptional IB educational offering,” she adds.
They are structured to empower students to become active, life-long learners, to grapple with challenge and engage in relevant discussions related to their world.
She assures, “The PYP still encompasses familiar subject areas, but is uniquely packaged. The term used is trans-disciplinary, where all subject areas relevant to each unit of learning, are integrated, under a conceptual understanding being explored over a period of five to seven weeks.”
Why PYP?
It encourages students to inquire through natural curiosity in a collaborative environment. The units of inquiry are designed ensure students develop a broader understanding of concepts, through their personal exploration of specific areas of interest related to the learning in the classroom.
It helps create meaning in a complex and interdependent world by building understandings through exploring real-world issues. This is explicitly planned for when units of learning are structured to build connections between and across subject areas.
It creates opportunities for students to become more confident communicators by ensuring they learn more than one language and are able to share their understandings in a variety of multimodal approaches (verbal, written, digital, face-to-face, pictorial etc.).
The PYP helps students see things from different perspectives. There are ongoing opportunities to consider the viewpoints, understandings, perspectives and voice of others, both from a positive and negative standpoint, and to consider how best to address this in broadening understandings.
It strongly believes in teaching students about learning how to learn. There is constant self-reflection, student- agency with voice and choice, and ultimately the expectation to consider one’s next steps needed, to progress in their learning.
International mindedness is encouraged, as is developing greater consideration of oneself, of others, of different cultures and different countries. Thus, becoming more open-minded in acknowledging why people may hold a different stance to their own.
The schools staff have been formally trained by the IB candidate schools and are now well on their way to ensuring the full authorisation of their schools as IB World Schools. Contact Traci Salter, Head of IB, for further details (
tsalter@advtech.co.za).