Overview

The International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme (IBMYP) is designed for students aged 11 to 16. This period is a particularly critical phase of personal and intellectual development and requires a programme that helps students participate actively and responsibly in a changing and increasingly interrelated world. Learning how to learn, how to evaluate information critically, how to develop effective solutions, and how to take responsible action are the central goals of education in these years.
Education for a better world: the IB Middle Years Programme. Please click on the following link: http://blogs.ibo.org/ibtv/2010/05/28/education-for-a-better-world-the-ib-middle-years-programme/

The IB Middle Years Programme at ISHCMC

The programme provides a thorough study of various academic disciplines while accentuating their interrelatedness, which teaches students to build connections, transfer knowledge, and develop abstract thought. The interdisciplinary nature of the curriculum is developed through five areas of interaction: approaches to learning, community and service, health and social education, environments, and human ingenuity (homo faber). These areas help students and teachers make connections between disciplines, and apply learning to their global experiences.


The Conceptual Framework of the IBMYP

Holistic Education:The IBMYP is based around traditional school subjects, but rejects the fragmentation that results when people assume that subjects have no relation to each other. Students are encouraged to look at learning in an interdisciplinary way; approaching issues and solving problems with skills, knowledge, and understandings obtained from a variety of subjects and experiences.

Intercultural Awareness: The aim is to show respect for cultural differences while promoting what are seen to be universal human values, thus fostering understanding among young people, enabling future generations to live more peacefully and productively than we do today. Part of the IBO mission is to help students “understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.” This understanding can help students find solutions to that address the issues that result from the inherent differences in our globalized world.

Communication: The IBMYP stresses the importance of clarity of expression, of listening to others, and of appreciating different cultures and ways of thinking. Students are required to learn a second language, and in cases where students are attending school in a language other than their mother tongue, the development of the mother tongue is encouraged and supported in school. Communication between students is encouraged and developed, so that students, rather than the teacher, are the center of the classroom. The enhanced ability to communicate with their peers on academic matters increases student success by bringing students’ social awareness into their learning, and bringing learning into students’ social lives.

Subject Groups

At ISHCMC we offer:
  • Language A: English and Vietnamese in Grades 6 -8 for most students. Korean is an additional option  in Grades 9 and 10
  • Language B: French, English and in Grade 6 and 7 Madarin
  • Mathematics: including five branches of mathematics: number, algebra, geometry and trigonometry, probability and statistics, and discrete mathematics.
  • Humanities: History and Geography
  • The Arts: Music, Drama, and Visual Arts
  • Sciences: Chemistry, Biology, Physics
  • Technology
  • Physical Education

Areas of interaction: helping students develop connections in their learning

Approaches to Learning: Enable students to understand the learning process. Students develop collaborative skills, communication, information literacy, reflection, problem solving and thinking skills, and conceptual understanding. How do I learn best? How do I know? How do I communicate my understanding?

Community and Service: Allows students to consider their role in supporting and building the communities around them. Students develop awareness, involvement and service, and reflection. How do we live in relation to others? How can I contribute to the community? How can I help others?

Human Ingenuity: Through which we consider the progress humans have made, and the consequences of our actions and solutions. Students evaluate origin, process, product, context, impact, and development. Why and how do we create? What are the consequences?

Environments: Aim to help students to see the links between economic, political, cultural and social issues, to develop positive and responsible attitudes, and to gain the motivation, skills and commitment to contribute to their environments. Students develop awareness, responsibility, action, and reflection. Where do we live? What resources do we have or need? What are my responsibilities?

Health and Social Education: Remind us to consider physical and emotional health: how to improve them, and how they affect our experiences and behaviors. Students develop knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, and action. How do I think and act? How am I changing? How can I look after myself and others?

Personal Project

The personal project is an independent piece of work that is undertaken in the final stages of the IBMYP Programme, and at ISHCMC this starts in the second half of Grade 9 and is completed in Grade 10. Students are apply methods and techniques developed through approaches to learning, and illustrate their appreciation of at least one of the other areas of interaction. The personal project can take various forms, such as:
  • an original work of art
  • a written piece of work on a special topic
  • a piece of creative writing
  • an original science experiment
  • an invention, or specially designed object or system
  • the presentation of a developed business, management or organisation plan
Each student works with a qualified person in the school who acts as a supervisor for the personal project, providing appropriate guidance and vouching for the authenticity of the work submitted.

Assessment

Assessment tasks are varied and include a wide range of tasks from traditional testing to contextualized tasks that allow students to apply their learning to the world around them. Assessment is criterion-referenced: grades are awarded according to criteria, which are prescribed by the IBO for each subject.

Reporting

Each Semester runs on the following cycle: interim reports, parent-student-teacher conferences, and semester reports. Reporting is designed to foster student learning, and increase communication between parents, teachers, and students.

IBMYP Certificate and Record of Achievement:

All students participating in Grade 10 at ISHCMC receive an IBMYP Record of Achievement. This is an official record, issued by the IBO and recognized around the world, of subjects taken and the student’s level of achievement in each subject. The IBMYP Certificate is awarded only to those students that meet the following criteria:

  • Participation in the MYP for Grades 9 and 10
  • A grade of at least a 2 in all subject areas
  • Completion of a minimum of 50 community and service hours over Grades 9 and 10
  • A  grade of at least a 3 on the personal project
  • A grade total of at least 36 out of a maximum of 63

Moderation of Assessment

Every year, teachers of each subject prepare samples of Grade 10 assessments which are sent away to IBO Moderators. Our assessment strategies and rewarding of grades based on the IBMYP criteria are assessed. Moderators are trained by the IBO, and assure us that we are awarding grades appropriately and to an international standard.