What curriculum does ISLQ follow in the Middle Years?
Inspired by the IB Middle Years Programme (MYP) framework, we provide a learning environment, which enables students to develop and fulfil their potential. To this end, we follow a teaching approach that fosters individual responsibility for learning in an atmosphere of cooperation amongst students.
The MYP is an international curriculum which combines academic rigour with students learning attitudes that are appropriate to the adolescent age group in the context of a global contemporary society. The curriculum is designed with a mobile student population in mind who are generally aspiring to university entry through the IB Diploma. As an international school, we actively promote the appreciation of cultural diversity within the school as well as encourage meaningful integration with the surrounding community.
ISLQ teachers will coach students to develop critical thinking, to solve ‘real-life’ problems, to communicate ideas, engage in public debate and express creative actions. Through this process, students maximise knowledge acquisition meaningfully and become aware and confident of their academic development.
What are the benefits of the IB Middle Years Programme?
The MYP covers the age range 11 to 16 (Years 7 to 11). It is a framework for an internationally minded curriculum aiming to foster the attitudes of global citizens, nurture the lifelong learning skills, and equip students to adapt to the challenges of an ever shrinking world combined with an academically rigorous programme.
The MYP is particularly suitable for an international school based in Qatar because it:
• leads into the IB Diploma Programme which has international currency (accepted by the leading universities in the world);
• promotes the learning and the use of more than one language;
• provides a platform to extend the programme of study beyond a single national curriculum;
• Is the basis for promoting international understanding at middle school level;
• Is a framework for learning about other cultures and for developing an awareness that the value of knowledge is culture relative.
What is the framework of the IB MYP?
The MYP framework is underpinned by three fundamental concepts: intercultural awareness, holistic education and communication. The student is represented at the centre of the MYP curriculum model to stress the child-centred approach to teaching and learning. At the far corners of the octagon sit 8 traditional subject areas. The five co-centric interactive themes represent the means through which the student has opportunities to frame real-world problems whose solutions benefit from multiple perspectives. These areas of interaction themes and activities are pivotal in assisting students to develop awareness of how subject knowledge is inter-related. Real world issues that are relevant to adolescents (such as justice, identity, and independence) transcend subject boundaries. Dealing with these issues in school fosters cognitive development and deeper conceptual understanding of real world problems.
What is the significance of the Areas of Interaction?
1. Approaches to learning (ATL) foster the exploration and development of active learning strategies. Through the ATL programme teachers help students to make active engagement in the learning process and to develop an awareness of this leaning process. At ISL students are encouraged to view the class teacher as a ‘facilitator’ who promotes reflection and discussion as important modes of learning. From the ATL ‘perspective’ subject areas are exposed as distinct processes for learning, rather than juxtaposition of facts grouped into disciplines.
• Through this perspective ISLQ students will come to realise that
• The learning process involves working through uncertainties & conflicts
• Reasoning abilities develop as one tests our ideas in different contexts
• Thinking involves making connections between multi-representation of ideas
• Addressing different audiences exposes our own ideas to multiple interpretations
2. The Community Service programme at ISLQ will take into consideration the ages, social, physical and emotional development of each student, encouraging him/her to grow as a whole person. The aim is to foster an altruistic attitude; increase the student’s sense of responsibility and self-esteem; and give insight into different social patterns and ways of life.
Students will be encouraged to accept responsibility for serving their local, national and international communities. Through Community Service students develop an understanding of the responsibility humans have to provide care for others. Students are provided with opportunities for experiential learning. Experiential learning involves concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualisation and active experimentation. Students grow emotionally and socially as they widen their horizons and participate in activities that may be new to them. Hopefully, students gain a long-term attitudinal change through their experiential learning.
Community Service develops good communication skills, teaches the value of cooperation, increases tolerance, promotes care and concern for the less privileged and raises self-awareness of ones role and place in society. The students are given the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of activities, in and out of school hours, using the talents and skills developed in school and elsewhere.
3. The Health and Social Education (HSE) area of interaction aims to educate the whole person and should prepare the students for a physically and mentally healthy life. It also aims to develop in them a sense of responsibility for their own well-being and for their physical and social environment.
The ISLQ HSE programme takes into consideration the ages, social, physical and emotional development of the students, encouraging them to develop their ability to make healthy choices for themselves and to become aware of social issues and their effect on communities. Through HSE, the student will have the opportunity to examine, discuss and reflect on the medical, psychological, social, economic and legal aspects of health. They will also have the opportunity to explore and reflect on the complex network of relationships they form with others.
4. Environment studies aims to establish a lifelong relevancy of environmental issues. At ISLQ Environment promotes connections between the subject specific learned material and current environmental issues dealt with by the media. Students’ development in this area involves an increased awareness of links between economic, political, cultural and social issues drawn from their subject areas. Current issues are the main learning and teaching resources.
5. Human Ingenuity (previously Homo Faber) is the Area of Interaction that brings subjects together around this historical perspective of human development. The aim of the Human Ingenuity programme is to highlight the effect of human creation on the way individuals and societies evolve.
The Human Ingenuity programme at ISLQ draws particular attention to the way in which human inspirations and technological development are interwoven. For instance, over 2500 years ago the philosopher Aristotle was inspired by the latest technological gadget of the period – moulded wax used for candles – conceiving the first theory of memory (deformation of the brain), later in the 16th century the German mathematician Leibniz used the novelty of the day – the mechanical clock – to inspire the long lasting clockwork view of the universe. Today as Information Technology dominates our lives many of us use computer architecture as an analogy to explain how our minds operate.
Through the Human Ingenuity programme students are invited to construct, extract or explore this extra dimension of each subject area. They are encouraged to become increasingly aware of the extent that human creation has on our social lives.
What is it like in an ISLQ classroom?
In the ISLQ classrooms the learning environment created is of support. Students are encouraged to express their viewpoints in a variety of forms (orally, wall display, drawings, role-playing, written form, modelling, artefact production etc.) These viewpoints are valued as worthwhile contributions to the learning experience. This environment creates an atmosphere of respect and trust where ideas are brought into the open, discussed, experimented with and challenged. ISLQ teachers are aware that learning is a gradual, non-linear and affective process; by following a ‘spiral curriculum scheme’ with an emphasis on formative assessment we offer ample opportunities for students to revisit and to rethink their ideas in new contexts.
By giving time for the students to think through new learning experiences they are able to internalise and to express deeper conflicting ideas and articulate their views more coherently. The combination of a spiral curriculum scheme, differentiated teaching strategies and teacher support are proving ideally suitable for integrating the newly arrived student whilst we maintain the demands of an academically ambitious curriculum.
What are the methods of assessment adopted in the Middle Years?
The overall purpose of assessment is to monitor level of understanding. Our assessment procedures are three folded; these are diagnostic tests, formative and summative assessment. Subject areas vary in the emphasis given to these three kinds of assessment, but the common objective that the teachers have in mind is to help students to improve on their learning habits and to discover their own best learning style.
1. Diagnostic Tests: These are typically short written or oral tests assigned before any formal teaching on a new topic or course starts. It serves two main purposes: it helps the teacher to gauge the general level of interest and understanding of the class and it also creates a learning environment concomitant with the high esteem placed in student contribution to the lesson.
2. Formative Assessment: These are carefully designed in advance with specific objectives in mind. The overall purpose of formative assessment is to offer an opportunity for students to reveal how he or she knows something (as opposed to revealing what they know. In general class teacher use formative assessment as a guideline for future course of action such as the pace of the lesson. Formative assessment is also used as a powerful self-assessment tool, as the focus is on strategies to arrive at a solution to problems, students reflect on their own experience and learn from other students. Self-assessment promotes awareness of level of competence, diversity of problem solving strategies and multiplicity of interpretations.
3. Summative Assessment: These are the traditional end-of-unit tests and end-of-year examinations. They are designed to identify the contents that the student knows from what he or she does not know. Whilst of limited educational value and often plagued with questions of reliability it is an essential component for the preparation to courses leading to external examination such as the International Baccalaureate Diploma (IBD, please refer to separate curriculum guide). All students in Years 10 and 11 will be required to complete a ‘personal project’. This is the most important assignment of the MYP, which is undertaken outside the school day starting in the third term of Year 10, and, generally, completed during the second term of Year 11. The project may take the form of a research essay, an artistic production, the construction of an artefact, an in depth investigation or some other means of expression that is of particular interest for the student and agreed by the MYP coordinator.
Will my son/daughter receive an official certificate after completing his/her MYP studies?
The award of final subject grades at the end of Year 11 is based on an aggregate of recorded levels of achievement; there is no final external examination. At ISLQ, student’s grades are recorded into the students report booklet issued twice a year. At the end of the MYP course, an overall grade on a scale 1 to 7 is awarded per subject per candidate and a sample of student work is externally moderated by the IBO. Provided the total points achieved are at least 36 (out of 63) including a minimum of 3 points for the personal project, the student is awarded an official MYP certificate.
