Our Year Six students are currently in the midst of The Primary Years Programme (PYP) exhibition which represents a significant event in their educational journey. Exhibition provides an opportunity to synthesize the essential elements of the PYP that have been continuously developed throughout their engagement with the programme and, therefore, should reflect:

• the learner profile
• concepts
• approaches to learning
• attitudes and
• action.

What’s happening at the moment? The exhibition takes the place of one of the six units of inquiry that all classes undertake throughout the year. The transdisciplinary theme is decided upon collaboratively as a student group and this year our students have selected.

Where We Are In Place And Time – an inquiry into orientation in place and time, personal histories, homes and journeys, the discoveries, explorations and migrations of humankind, the relationships between and the interconnectedness of individuals and civilizations, from local and global perspectives.

The inquiry into the transdisciplinary theme may incorporate one or more of the theme’s elaborations, however, all students collaboratively engage in the inquiry process which involves the students identifying, investigating and offering solutions to real-life issues or problems. Groups have been formed based on areas of interest in-keeping with the theme description.

The Central Idea, an essential understanding, which has been collaboratively designed by the students with teacher guidance is:

Progress influences our decisions about how we behave, interact and envision the world around us, provides sufficient scope and significance to allow a detailed investigation.

The boys are underway gathering their information from primary and secondary resources, busily searching reputable websites and interviewing experts in the field.

The exhibition truly is a community undertaking. Teachers from across the school have been engaged as mentors to assist the students to meet their goals by asking questions, suggesting resources, helping to interpret difficult information and facilitating interviews or telephone calls. The mentors act as a guide and a resource. Each group will meet with their mentor on a weekly basis as well as meeting with an appointed supervisor who ensures everything is on-track.

Parents, too have an important role in supporting and encouraging their sons throughout the process of inquiry. At times this may necessitate assisting students to access resources (people, places, media and information), providing expert knowledge, acting as mentors, and encouraging independent inquiry by respecting the student ownership of the inquiry.

Most of all, we ask the community to celebrate with the students by attending the staging of the exhibition.

Save the date: Tuesday 27 October 2015 at 6pm.