In little over two weeks’ time, our Year 6 boys will proudly share their PYP Exhibition of 2019. It will be the result of ten weeks of hard work this term, but the planning and initial work started back in Term 2. The theme for this year’s Exhibition has been on student agency, allowing the boys to choose a number of key components throughout the process. This started with a choice of excursion venues around Sydney in Term 2 with a focus on curation, beginning to think about how they would like to present their own Exhibition. The boys then chose their transdisciplinary theme, created their central idea and then lines of inquiry. In past exhibitions, all of the above would be chosen for them. This year, it was opened up to the boys.

Whilst this presents a challenge as a teacher- keeping on top of so many of the boys’ ideas, it also opens up the Exhibition and allows the boys to go in really diverse directions. This year the boys are looking into a variety of issues including the effects of concussion in sport, the ethics of cheap clothing, the consequences of drought in rural NSW, plastic pollution in the oceans, racism in Australian sport, just to name but a few.

Throughout the process the boys have worked in small groups and have focused on the skills of collaboration, time management, delegation, research, and presenting in order to put together a successful exhibition. As a PYP school, we are always looking to collaborate with other like-minded schools and the boys visited Ravenswood yesterday in order to view the girls’ Exhibition. It was fantastic to see the boys engaging with the girls and pitching the sort of questions that they will be facing themselves in Week 10.

The whole school community is invited to come and view the boys’ Exhibition on Tuesday 24 September. Students in K-5 will visit throughout the day, whilst the boys will be running an evening session from 6-8pm to which all are invited to attend. We hope to see you there!

Sam Watson – Teacher 6W