Middle Years

The International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme is a holistic programme in that it requires students to develop depth of knowledge across a broad curriculum. The MYP is organised around three main principles: multilingualism, intercultural understanding and holistic learning. The curriculum is organised around building conceptual understanding in a discipline-based model with interdisciplinary units in each year. Students develop academic skills organised into ten skill clusters known as the Approaches to Learning (ATL). The MYP culminates in the new MYP eAssessment suite of onscreen exams and eportfolios for the award of the IB MYP Certificate.

 The curriculum consists of eight subject groups:

• Language and Literature
• Language Acquisition (or a second Language & Literature subject)
• Individuals and Societies
• Science
• Mathematics
• Arts
• Physical and Health Education
• Design

The MYP core comprises three additional components:

• Interdisciplinary Learning is focused on developing interdisciplinary and critical-thinking skills. The interdisciplinary units involve two or more disciplines working together to explore a topic with more breadth. There is a strong focus on the transfer of knowledge and skills across disciplines to develop deeper conceptual understanding.
• The Community and Personal Projects involve students working collaboratively (Community Project) and independently (Personal Project) on a topic or community need of their own choosing and under supervision completing an investigation related to their own areas of interest and particular talents.
• Service as Action (SAA) in the MYP is built on a similar model to and introduces the Diploma Programme CAS component. The focus of SAA is to provide authentic, real life extensions to the academic programme which benefit communities and provide in many cases an experiential learning element. While it is not formally assessed, it is monitored qualitatively and completion is a requirement for every year of the programme.

Grades and Assessment

Each examined subject is graded on a scale of 1 (minimum) to 7 (maximum) as a final grade. This grade is determined by how students perform against four assessment criteria in each subject. Through a programme of continuous assessment, students demonstrate progress against the assessment criteria throughout the year and final achievement levels determine the final IB grade. On completion of the fifth year of the programme, students take final onscreen exams and – if successful – are awarded the IB MYP Certificate.

Programmes

Students in the MYP pathway attend four weekly lessons of French or German as an additional language. As they learn to communicate perfectly in English, they also move towards fluency in French or German with intensive Arabic lessons.

Students in the bilingual MYP pathway study certain disciplines in French or German and others in English. The bilingual students who take subjects in French or German as well as English are eligible for the award of the bilingual MYP Certificate on completion of the programme.

At any point during a student’s SISD school career a change from the bilingual MYP to MYP will be discussed if progress reports, language support provisions and teacher feedback recommend this transition to the student’s academic benefit.

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