The Middle Years Programme (MYP) of the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) is a course of study designed to meet the educational requirements of students aged between 11 and 16 years. The curriculum may be taught as an entity in itself, but it is flexible enough to allow the demands of national, regional or local legislation to be met.
Early and present curriculum developers of the Middle Years Program have shared a common concern to prepare young people for the changing demands of life in the twenty-first century.
MYP students are at an age when they are making the transition from early puberty to mid-adolescence: this is a crucial period of personal, social, physical and intellectual development, of uncertainty and of questioning. The MYP has been devised to guide students in their search for a sense of belonging in the world around them. It also aims to help students to develop the knowledge, attitudes and skills they need to participate actively and responsibly in a changing and increasingly interrelated world. This means teaching them to become independent learners who can recognize relationships between school subjects and the world outside, and learn to combine relevant knowledge, experience and critical thinking to solve authentic problems.
The eight subject groups provide a broad, traditional foundation of knowledge, while the pedagogical devices used to transmit this knowledge aim to increase the students’ awareness of the relationships between the subjects. Students are encouraged to question and evaluate information critically, to seek out and explore the links between subjects, and to develop an awareness of their own place in the world.
The MYP aims to encourage students to develop:
- the disposition and capacity to be lifelong learners
- the capacity to adapt to a rapidly changing reality
- problem-solving skills, practical skills and intellectual rigour
- the capacity and self-confidence to act individually and collaboratively
- an awareness of global issues and the willingness to act responsibly
- the ability to engage in effective communication across frontiers
- respect for others and an appreciation of similarities and differences.
Fundamental concepts
Adolescents are confronted with a vast and often bewildering array of choices. The MYP is designed to provide students with the values and opportunities that will enable them to develop sound judgment. Learning how to learn and how to evaluate information critically is as important as the content of the disciplines themselves.
From its beginning, the MYP has been guided by three fundamental concepts that underpin its development, both internationally and in individual schools:
- holistic learning
- intercultural awareness
- communication.
These concepts form the basis for the MYP’s curriculum framework, which is shared by different types of schools in all parts of the world. The fundamental concepts of the MYP should be the guiding principles in designing the curriculum and school activities.
Holistic learning
Holistic learning emphasizes the links between the disciplines, providing a global view of situations and issues. Students should become more aware of the relevance of their learning, and come to see knowledge as an interrelated whole. Students should see the cohesion and the complementarity of various fields of study, but this must not be done to the detriment of learning within each of the disciplines, which retain their own objectives and methodology.
Intercultural awareness
Intercultural awareness is concerned with developing students’ attitudes, knowledge and skills as they learn about their own and others’ social and national cultures. By encouraging students to consider multiple perspectives, intercultural awareness not only fosters tolerance and respect, but may also lead to empathy.
Communication
Communication is fundamental to learning, as it supports inquiry and understanding, and allows student reflection and expression. The MYP places particular emphasis on language acquisition and allows students to explore multiple forms of expression.
Areas of interaction
Students are required to experience and explore each of the five areas of interaction in every year of the programme:
- approaches to learning (ATL) , in which students take increasing responsibility for their learning
- community and service , through which students become aware of their roles and their responsibilities as members of communities
- homo faber , environment, health and social education, broad areas of student inquiry where personal as well as societal and global issues are investigated and debated.
The areas of interaction give the MYP its distinctive core. These areas are common to all disciplines and are incorporated into the MYP so that students will become increasingly aware of the connections between subject content and the real world, rather than considering subjects as isolated areas unrelated to each other and to the world. The MYP presents knowledge as an integrated whole, emphasizing the acquisition of skills and self-awareness, and the development of personal values. As a result, students are expected to develop an awareness of broader and more complex global issues.
The areas of interaction are explored through the subjects, thereby fulfilling their integrative function. Some aspects, however, may also be approached as separate modules and interdisciplinary projects throughout the MYP. Student participation in the areas of interaction culminates in the personal project.
Further information on the personal project is available in the Personal Project guide.
Curricular framework
The MYP offers a five-year curricular framework that allows school-specific requirements to be met while maintaining the mission and philosophy of the IBO. To ensure this, the IBO prescribes the aims and objectives of all subject groups and the personal project.
Aims and objectives
The objectives of each subject group are skills based and broad enough to allow a variety of teaching and learning approaches. The precise choice and organization of content is left to schools in order to preserve flexibility. In some subjects the content is not specified while in others a framework of concepts or topics is prescribed for all students to address over the five years. Such prescription is kept to a minimum and schools are asked to expand their scope of topics and depth of treatment according to their individual needs and preferences.
The aims and objectives of the subject groups address all aspects of learning including knowledge, understanding, skills and attitudes.
- Knowledge: the facts that the student should be able to recall to ensure competence in the subject
- Understanding: how the student will be able to interpret, apply or predict aspects of the subject
- Skills: shown through tasks that allow the student to apply what has been learned to new situations
- Attitudes: the ways in which the student is changed by the learning experience
The IBO provides final objectives for students completing the fifth year of the programme, and examples of interim objectives that describe what a student may be able to achieve after earlier years of the programme while aiming for the final objectives. The final objectives for students completing the fifth year of the programme form the basis for the assessment criteria that are intended for use in the final assessment of students’ work at the end of year 5. Whether or not schools request IBO-validated grades for their students, they are all required to organize learning and assessment in a way that is consistent with the prescribed objectives.
Schemes of work
It is each school’s responsibility to produce schemes of work that enable students to reach the objectives of each subject. Sample schemes of work or sample activities for all subject groups have been written by practising teachers as a suggested means of achieving this. Teachers may choose to adopt the samples offered, amend them to suit their own requirements, or write an alternative scheme of work.
Whichever schemes of work schools adopt, the final MYP objectives are prescribed. The areas of interaction should remain an integral part of the subject teaching and learning process, and must be at the core of the personal project.
Assessment
The MYP uses a criterion-referenced model of assessment. Teachers should ensure that both formative and summative assessment processes are used.
Teachers may modify the assessment criteria published in this guide to suit years 1–4 of the MYP; for example, they may create task-specific rubrics to assess student work. In schools that do not request IBO-validated grades, the assessment criteria may also be modified in the final year of the programme, as long as the published standards are not compromised.
Schools that request IBO-validated grades and MYP certification for students must submit work that has been assessed internally, using the published criteria, to IBCA for external moderation.
Programme evaluation
Programme evaluation is mandatory for all schools. It is a means of ensuring the quality of programmes in participating schools, while assisting schools in their self-evaluation and curriculum development procedures. Evaluation occurs at regular, predetermined intervals.
