Inquiry learning is an active thinking and learning process. It is helping students to make cognitive connections and create sense of the world around them. Through teacher questions and also students forming their own questions. Students form their own questions, plan and implement ways of finding information and use these experiences to build answers to their own questions. Inquiry learning requires high levels of thinking because students need to form inquiry question that enable purposeful and worthwhile information gathering, make plans and decide on appropriate sources of information, evaluate the information they gather and use it to extend their prior knowledge and gain deeper understanding.

There is sometimes confusion around inquiry for parents as there are different types of inquiry. At one end of the spectrum there is free inquiry, which is a personal inquiry and quite free and open ended. In the PYP, we seldom run free inquiry, unless a student undertakes personal action at home. In the PYP students usually learn through a structured inquiry. The teacher usually determines the unit focus and/or questions but some aspects of the inquiry may be negotiated with the class. This may be in the choice of topics selected for the structured inquiry during the unit or the medium of presentation of the student’s ideas.  We are running a parent session in Week 8 on inquiry and we would really enjoy the opportunity for as many parents as possible to come along and learn about what inquiry looks like at Newington. 

Mr Benjamin Barrington-Higgs – Head of Lindfield Campus