Overview

The Primary Years Programme (PYP) is a transdisciplinary curriculum framework that offers authentic learning experiences.

The PYP encourages students to learn to appreciate knowledge, conceptual understandings, skills and personal attributes as a connected whole.

OUR PROGRAMMES OF INQUIRY core text overview

IB World School …

Our curriculum covers all the requirements of the National Curriculum but is arranged around inquiries into six different Transdisciplinary Themes. Peninsula East Primary Academy is an IB World School, authorised to deliver the International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years Programme. 

International Baccalaureate World School logo

The  International Baccalaureate® aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.

To this end the organization works with schools, governments and international organizations to develop challenging programmes of international education and rigorous assessment.

These programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.

Overview of the pyp framework

Peninsula East Primary Academy has at its core the pursuit of the highest standards possible in education.

We believe in high aspirations, high motivation and high achievement for all. Through our extended curriculum we seek to meet the needs of the individual.

We aim to build a community underpinned by international mindfulness, traditional values and social justice in which all members are equally valued.

We are committed to ensuring the very best for our children in order for them to play a significant part in society.

Our aim is to:

We are unashamedly uncompromising, in our promotion of excellence for all, respect, politeness and determination.

At Peninsula East Primary Academies, we are passionate that the children are at the heart of our curriculum and learning opportunities are both innovative and inclusive. It has been carefully designed to enable the depth and breadth of the national curriculum to be explored through the transdisciplinary themes of the IB PYP framework and carefully interleaves the wider range of subjects, ensuring not only a clear sequence of learning but that the children are able to retain key facts and knowledge into their long term memory. A key aspect is to help children develop their understanding of being a Global learner as their international mindedness is developed, and how they can make a positive contribution to their community and the wider society. The curriculum celebrates the diversity and utilises the skills, knowledge and cultural wealth of the community while supporting the children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, ensuring that children are well prepared for life in modern Britain and as Global Citizens. The IB Learner Profiles are an integral part in developing the whole child and are embedded within the ethos and values of our schools. Our children learn through relevant and purposeful contexts, building upon prior learning and our curriculum promotes this by being challenging, engaging and motivating to all pupils, fostering a real thirst for knowledge that we want them to take with them as they move  into their secondary schools and beyond. 

Our EYFS, Key stage 1 and 2 bespoke curriculum is planned collaboratively across both schools with each member of staff mapping out their appropriate curriculum frameworks (the Primary National Curriculum) through the transdisciplinary themes of the IB. 

Transdisciplinary themes for the year are:

We initially map out the National Curriculum skills under the transdisciplinary themes to ensure complete coverage for the children by the time they leave us in Year 6. This also allows us to guarantee that no skills outside of each year group are repeated at any one time; if there are similarities between the teachings of inquiries, we collaboratively plan to make sure that there is always progression between what has been taught previously. Furthermore, the nature of collaborative planning supports teachers to create opportunities for inquiries to explore the national curriculum and because teachers plan collectively they can utilise teachers’ subject strengths. We then focus on the key and related concepts, presenting these to our children so that they can lead the learning through their interests and questions and help us to formulate a central idea.  Once formed, teachers collate key questions from the children in order to plan engaging learning opportunities which also allow for the coverage of the skills within the National curriculum. 

Our planning and timetabling of the school day are both flexible, allowing staff and children to explore and inquire without losing any momentum. If needed, teachers can choose to teach discrete lessons to ensure curriculum coverage but we aim to interleave subjects as much as possible, ensuring a breadth and depth of knowledge and a clear sequence of learning. The teachers are skilled in ensuring that prior knowledge is built upon and referred back to where appropriate so that the children can make the links between what they have learnt and develop their long term memories. 

In order to ensure pupils are globally aware and internationally minded,  as part of our curriculum we also teach the children about the sustainable development goals. This teaches them about the wider world and the impact that each person can have, giving them an opportunity to make a difference to the lives of others. Our children will be part of local projects with each class having a local link, such as to old peoples homes, local farmers and so on, so we can build upon our links to the local community and so that the children learn about their local area and the impact it has on their lives. Through having our own allotment, we can sell our produce at cut prices to our families and through Enterprise projects, the children can contribute earnings into events such as the Year 6 Residential trip –  this not only helps our children to see how they can impact on their own lives but also makes the learning purposeful and meaningful to our children.

For Maths, we predominantly use the White rose planning documents to ensure progression of skills across the school and where possible make links to the children’s inquiries. Whilst these plans are used, teachers are allowed the flexibility to change the order of units if necessary to meet the children’s needs. We use the Concrete, Pictorial and Abstract approach consistently throughout the school, allowing our children to be able to manipulate the maths and visualize it, which not only helps to transfer knowledge to long term memory but also helps them to have a concrete understanding of mathematical concepts.  We believe that children should talk about their maths continually throughout the lessons being able to explore mathematical language and to problem solve collaboratively as well as developing independent skills. Fluency is a key focus ensuring they build upon prior knowledge and make links between skills already learnt – we interleave fluency, problem solving and reasoning in our lessons as we believe that all children should have access to these throughout a maths lesson and use high-quality and carefully planned questioning.  

Music is taught as a discrete subject, provided to the school by a specialist teacher from Medway. We also offer a wide range of extra-curricular clubs which further enrich the learning opportunities for the children across both schools.

The curriculum will be delivered by: 

At consistent points throughout the term, all staff will be given opportunities to reflect on the last unit of inquiry and feedback on what went well, what did not go well and how this will impact on future learning throughout the rest of the academic year. Additionally, all teachers use a feedback form throughout each day so they can evaluate the learning, what they need to do next and any areas of focus – this will be blended with the use of the SOLO taxonomy and teachers will also use this to assess the learning at the end of a term. We believe that children should be given continuous feedback throughout the school day in order to move their learning on and so they know the next steps for improvement and this should mainly be through verbal interactions built into the school day – this also ensures that they can make links between their learning. As part of this feedback, the children will be able to reflect on the IB Learner Profile attributes against the work they have completed. During each term, staff will use short Google quizzes to track their progress and understanding against what they have been learning and so we can review the gaps that need to be filled in order for them to progress further.

Through our curriculum implementation as stated above our children will become;

Subject specific curriculum statements

International Mindedness

International-mindedness is central to the IB mission and is a foundational principle to its educational philosophy; it is at the heart of the continuum of international education.

International-mindedness is a view of the world in which people see themselves connected to the global community and assume a sense of responsibility towards its members. It is an awareness of the interrelatedness of all nations and peoples, and is a recognition of the complexity of these. Internationally minded people appreciate and value the diversity of peoples, cultures and societies in the world. They make efforts to learn more about others and to develop empathy and solidarity towards them to achieve mutual understanding and respect (Oxfam 2105; UNESCO 2015).

International Mindedness Venn diagram.

Primary Years Programme (PYP) learners and their learning communities have a range of perspectives, values and traditions. The concept of international-mindedness builds on these diverse perspectives to generate a sense of common humanity and shared guardianship of the planet.

Source: From Principles Into Practice – ibo.org PYP Resources (need password).

International Mindedness is being aware and having an understanding of everyone’s cultures and views whilst connecting with all members of the global community. 

Here at Peninsula East Primary Academy we try to have a deep understanding of the world around us as well as our local communities. We celebrate the different cultures and backgrounds of the children/families within our school community and encourage them to share these across the Leigh Academies Trust. 

Throughout the year we participate and learn about different festivals and celebrations from a range of different countries to help our children immerse themselves within other cultures. As our inquiries are child led this allows pupil agency, which often intertwines with current events, personal holidays and/or family heritage, within the global community.

To further support the children’s understanding we include key events from different cultures into our weekly assemblies. In KS2, children also have the opportunity to look at updates in the news and discuss them as a class using programmes such as Newsround to support. We have recently purchased world maps for each classroom and plan to refer to the location of where the children and staff were born, have visited and places we learn about as part of our inquiries. We would welcome any pictures of different countries that people within our community have visited to display so as to help the children visualise what these locations are like. Now that COVID restrictions have eased, we will be inviting parents and members of the community in to share their knowledge about different countries and cultures. 

We currently learn French as our modern language as we have recently made some connection with a primary school in Paris, who we look forward to doing some work with from September 2021. This amazing opportunity will allow our children an in-depth knowledge of how a primary school and their lifestyle in different countries are similar but also different to ours.

Co-curricular at PEPA

Co-curriculum opportunities at Peninsula East Primary Academy include, but are not limited to, activities and learning experiences that enhance the learning and inquiry that happens within the school day. As part of the IB PYP it is imperative that the learning we offer is broad and balanced, therefore, we feel strongly that our co-curricular clubs and learning experiences support and nurture the learning we confidently offer to our pupils.

Our Co-curricular Offer at PEPA 

As an IB World School, we are committed to forming connections and links with the community around us; this is more important now than ever before following the amalgamation of two peninsula schools. It is imperative that we thoroughly explore the history and heritage of both villages so that we get a true understanding of the community in which our school is located. We have begun making several associations within the local area and we are committed to doing this into the future, all of which are encompassed within the philosophy of the IB. As part of this, we have made links with the local Haven Holiday Park in order to offer exciting and rich learning experiences beyond what we can offer within school. We are extremely fortunate to have such a good relationship with the Park and as a result our children, starting from Term 2, will be able to access co-curricular clubs such as rock climbing, laser tag, creature creations and den building.

Through the PYP we aim to deliver fantastic learning experiences through our co-curricular offer, this also works well with the belief that learning goes beyond the classroom walls and to the outdoors, which the Haven Park will be facilitating for our children.

We offer a range of co-curricular clubs such as:

Modern British Values

As a world school, Modern British Values are hugely important to us and we recognise how they can impact on children both academically and socially. British Values can be defined as an understanding of:

  • Democracy
  • Rule of Law
  • Individual Liberty
  • Mutual Respect
  • Tolerance of those of Different Faiths and Beliefs

These values are integral to so many other countries in the world and are central to the way in which our pupils learn. Our children are taught explicitly through Personal, Social, Health and Emotional (PSHE), and Religious Education (RE) about these values. We also teach British Values through planning and delivering a broad and balanced PYP curriculum.