PYP

PYP Key concepts- How do concepts impact learning? 

The PYP curriculum recognises learners’ innate potential to inquire, question, wonder and theorise about themselves, others, and the world around them.  

The PYP has 7 key concepts that are relevant to every area of learning at school and beyond.  

Whether your child is in Year 2 using the lens of ‘Change’ to inquire into why people migrate, to Year 5 inquiring into how ‘Responsibility’ is enacted by our government system.  The concepts enable deeper learning and transfer of knowledge to new areas. 

What is it like? (Form) 

How does it work? (Function) 

How is it connected to other things? (Connection) 

How does it change? (Change) 

Why is it like that? Why is it the way it is? (Causation) 

What are the different points of view? (Perspective) 

What are our responsibilities? (Responsibility) 

How can you support and encourage conceptual understanding? 

Value process: As often as possible get your child thinking beyond what they did and what they learned, and more about how they learned. Some great questions include: 

How did you do that? Why did you do that? What strategy did you use? How did you learn that strategy? What steps did you take? 

How do concepts impact learning? 

The 7 key concepts are secret ingredients to help learners think more deeply and understand… ANYTHING. The beauty of these key concepts is that they work for everything! You can apply these questions to any subject or area of learning. 

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Inquiry

In inquiry we have our key concepts. We have used them when we were making our wonderings. We sat in a group and talked about what key concept our wondering connected to. When we were beginning our new unit of inquiry, ‘Where we are in place and time’. Our central idea was, ‘Exploration leads to discoveries, opportunities and new understandings’. My wondering was – What would happen if there were no opportunities in the world? My wondering was connected to change. 

 By Alexandra

The key concepts tell you about how things work and how things work together to impact on something or have an outcome. When we were doing our unit on. ‘How we organise ourselves’, we watched a Bear Grylls episode. We looked at the key concept ‘Function’. He explained how it would work.  Bear Grylls made a fish trap that was made from bamboo and vines to get breakfast. Bear Grylls was a thinker which is one of our Leaner profile attributes when he followed the sound of the river to be taken to the larger jungle river. 

By Sophie