Middle Years Program: 6th - 10th grade
Baldwin School is authorized to offer the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program (MYP) in grades 6th through 10th. The MYP is a five-year program for students in 6th through 10th grade. It’s curriculum framework comprises eight subject groups, providing a broad and balanced education for early adolescents.
The MYP aims to help students develop their personal understanding, their emerging sense of self and responsibility in their community.
In an MYP classroom, you’ll notice that the students are at the center of learning. In this student-centered approach to teaching and learning, students are drawing connections between all subject areas, learning is explicitly linked to the world around them, participation in a foreign language is required, and a variety of formal and informal assessments are used to inform teaching and learning.
MYP learning experiences infuse global points of view wherever possible in order to promote understanding of other cultures, an awareness of the human condition and an understanding that there is a commonality of human experience.
Teaching and learning in the MYP is underpinned by the following concepts:
Teaching and learning in context
Students learn best when their learning experiences have context and are connected to their lives and their experience of the world that they have experienced.
Using global contexts, MYP students develop an understanding of their common humanity and shared guardianship of the planet through developmentally appropriate explorations of:
- identities and relationships
- personal and cultural identity
- orientations in space and time
- scientific and technical innovation
- fairness and development
- globalization and sustainability.
Conceptual understanding
Concepts are big ideas that have relevance within specific disciplines and across subject areas. MYP students use concepts as a vehicle to inquire into issues and ideas of personal, local and global significance and examine knowledge holistically.
Approaches to learning
A unifying thread throughout all MYP subject groups, approaches to learning (ATL) provide the foundation for independent learning and encourage the application of their knowledge and skills in unfamiliar contexts. Developing and applying these social, thinking, research, communication and self management skills helps students learn how to learn.
Service as action, through community service
Action and service have always been shared values of the IB community. Students take action when they apply what they are learning in the classroom and beyond. IB learners strive to be caring members of the community who demonstrate a commitment to service—making a positive difference to the lives of others and to the environment.
Service as action is an integral part of the program, especially in the MYP Community Project, which Baldwin students complete in 8th grade.
MYP Projects
MYP projects provide students the opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned in the Program.
The Community Service Project, which Baldwin students complete in 8th grade, encourages students to explore their right and responsibility to implement service as action in the community. Students may complete the community project individually or in small groups.
All Baldwin students must complete the Personal Project in 10th grade (year 5 of the MYP). Each student develops the personal project independently, producing a truly personal and creative piece of work that stands as a summative review of their ability to conduct independent work.
Assessment in the MYP
In order to maintain the rigor for which the IB is renowned, the MYP assessment model is criterion-related. The IB prescribes 4 set criteria per subject area. Teachers structure varied and valid assessment tasks so that students can demonstrate achievement according to objectives defined by the IB. Tasks are assessed against established criteria, not against the work of other students.
A good curriculum develops a range of student skills. The MYP encourages teachers to assess this acquired skill set, including how to succeed in written examinations. Typical MYP assessment tasks include open-ended, problem-solving activities and investigations, organized debates, tests and examinations, hands-on experimentation, analysis and reflection. MYP assessment is carried out by teachers, according to the criteria defined by the IB.
