East Middle School
Middle Years Programme (MYP)
International Baccaulaureate (IB) Middle Years Prgoramme (MYP)
East Middle School offers the International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Programme (MYP) to all students.
IB/MYP Overview
The IB Middle Years Programme provides a framework of academic challenge that encourages students to embrace and understand the connections between traditional subjects and the real world, and to become critical and reflective thinkers. Students are required to study their mother tongue, a second language, humanities, sciences, mathematics, arts, physical education and design.
How is the IB Middle Years Programme Unique?
We encourage international-mindedness in IB students, starting with a foundation in their own language and culture.
We encourage a positive attitude to learning by challenging students to solve problems, show creativity and resourcefulness, and participate actively in their communities.
We reflect real life by providing a framework that allows students to see the connections among the subjects themselves, and between the subjects and real issues.
We support the development of communication skills to encourage inquiry, understanding, language acquisition, and to allow student reflection and expression.
Through the learner profile, we emphasize the development of the whole student—physically, intellectually, emotionally and ethically.
MYP Fundamental Concepts
The Middle Years Programme is designed to provide students with the values and opportunities that will enable them to develop sound judgment. The programme is guided by three fundamental concepts that are rooted in the IB mission statement. These concepts are:
Holistic Learning—representing the notion that all knowledge is interrelated and that the curriculum should cater to the development of the whole person, the attributes of which are described by the IB learner profile. The MYP framework provides links between subject groups and between subject groups and real-world issues. This is accomplished through the the Global Contexts.
Intercultural awareness—representing the notion that school communities should encourage and promote international-mindedness by engaging with and exploring other cultures, a key feature of international education as reflected in the attributes of the IB learner profile. Students should be encouraged to consider issues from multiple perspectives. Students will develop attitudes, knowledge, concepts and skills as they learn about their own and others’ social, national and ethnic cultures—leading to intercultural awareness, understanding, and respect.
Communication—representing the notion that schools should encourage open and effective communication, important skills that contribute to international understanding as exemplified by the attributes of the IB learner profile. A communicator is someone who can understand and express ideas and information confidently and creatively in more than one language and in a variety of modes of communication. Since language is the means by which meaning and knowledge are negotiated and constructed, all teachers in the MYP are seen as language teachers.
