Grade 6 Primary Years Programme Exhibition
It has been a particularly busy week in Grade 6 as for the past two days we have been celebrating the PYP Exhibition (PYPX). The Grade 6 students have been sharing their learning with the whole school community and it has been wonderful to see how much they have enjoyed doing so. A few weeks back I shared some information about the PYPX:
‘The Primary Years Programme (PYP) provides students with many opportunities, both formal and informal, to show how they’ve developed and applied their knowledge and skills through the inquiries they undertake. One notable example of such opportunities is the PYP exhibition. This exhibition is a culminating or consolidating learning experience that all IB programmes include in their final year. Other programmes have their own culminating experiences, such as the personal project in the Middle Years Programme (MYP), the extended essay in the Diploma Programme (DP), and the reflective project in the Career-related Programme (CP).
During the PYP exhibition, students demonstrate their understanding of an issue or topic they’ve chosen to explore. They work on their investigation both individually and with their peers, with the guidance of their homeroom teachers and also an assigned mentor. This way, students demonstrate their ability to take responsibility for their learning and their capacity to take action as they plan, present, and assess their learning. The exhibition is a powerful way for students to showcase their agency in learning.’
Now that the process and learning has been shared with the community, the students will have the opportunity to reflect on their experiences and, during conversations I have had with students so far, it is clear that much learning has taken place.
The PYPX presents a wide range of challenges and gives the students a tremendous opportunity to learn about themselves as learners. It really does help students to ‘learn how to learn’ and it is here that the Approaches to Learning (ATL) become so valuable. Students have had to work together with peers, they have had to manage their time and plan a course of action, and they have had to research and use their thinking skills to consider ways to overcome challenges, for example.
During their reflections, students will be encouraged to consider how this experience might help them when they next have to use their ATL skills. How might they work more successfully as part of a group? How might they better plan how to use their time? How might they modify the way they present and share their information so that they may better connect with their audience? How might they be more efficient and effective when researching a topic?
Whether the students are able to recall some of the facts and information they learned about over these past weeks is of some importance, but, for me, the key learning that I hope registers and carries forward is what the students have learned about themselves as a learner and what steps they might take next to become a more successful, independent learner.
If you have any questions about the PYP Exhibition, please ask.
Best regards,
Matthew Richmond
PYP Coordinator