The International Schools Review Forum

i have a colleague with whom i have venting sessions fairly often. one thing she said to me the other night that was kind of odd to me - maybe you've been through the same things - but that i really couldn't give a great answer to was the following:

she has 5+ years with PYP and she is in a school that is accredited for PYP and IB. however, they have basically told her that they basically will only do the minimum in order to keep the tag of "PYP," only switching it if need be for a visit. she obviously didn't know this was the scenario and mindset when she went to this school so she's fairly disappointed. she was describing the scene to me and it really sounded bad.

anyways, what would you have told her? i told her to do as much PD as they would allow and start searching for a functional pyp school if that's what she wanted. to sate my own curiosity, is this something that happens regularly at international schools?

v.

What do you mean by minimum? There are a lot of IB ISs, and while there are model IB World ISs that PYP looks like its dreamed to be, a lot of ISs do the minimum, but the minimum is pretty substantial. Everyone has to be trained, but the training never added very much it was more an introduction to western meds/peds for DTs who were drill and kill and chalk and talk DTs. The other workshops dont scale up much in quality, you just dont learn much in 17 hours during a group based instruction. You learn the IB terminology, you learn about exhibition/portfolio and then some basics of interdisciplinary curriculum organization in MTPYPH. What more does she want, or is she looking for? Did she come from one of those really well developed PYP ISs, and now shes at an IS that pays little more than lip service to PYP? Is her IS growing, a lot of times its baby steps.
Thats a lot of PYP ISs, Its a lot of work, and parents dont like PYP, ITs dont understand it, and leadership realizes that its expensive. Its a LOT easier for everyone to just open a book demo a maths concept, and have studnts practice, and repeat until studnts get it, then it is to try and figure out how to fit a maths lesson into a UIs theme.
PYP authorization is a 5 year cycle and there are a number of ISs that only put on the PYP 'show' during their authorization year, the other 4 years they just make sure the binder is up to date.

i'll have to get back to you about that...

v.

I had a colleague who went to work at a 3rd tier for-profit school because it was in a desirable location. She said despite the school being PYP, teachers were passing out and marking worksheets the majority of the time - pretty much the antithesis of how the PYP should be run. I doubt this is uncommon at for-profit schools, as IB training for faculty can be a large expense.