The IB Middle Years Programme is a curriculum framework. Being a framework, the elements inside are very important. It may be compared to the skeletal system, which keeps all the human body’s internal organs safe. The International Baccalaureate Organization in its Standards and Practices (2020), encourages schools to have a coherent curriculum in place. Standard 4040-01 states, “the school plans and implements a coherent curriculum that organizes learning and teaching within and across the years of its IB programme(s) (0401-01)”.
The XLIS MYP team went through an eighteen month process of analyzing our curriculum to identify any gaps or overlaps, to ensure we deliver a coherent curriculum to our precious students. Being a ACS WASC accredited school it was also important that the school ensured, “student understanding of standards-based curriculum and schoolwide learner outcomes” (Focus on Learning, 2020, B1.5). The team carefully mapped academic standards into the MYP framework to provide students with a horizontally and vertically aligned curriculum. We also took the attributes of the IB learner profile as our schoolwide learner outcomes, thus strengthening the coherence.
It is our pleasure to share this work with our community. It will help families see the entire scope of our Middle Years Program so they may support their children from home. It may be used by schools new to the MYP to help them get off on the right foot. Please enjoy this piece of collaborative curriculum mapping.