Primary Years Programme Making the PYP happen - ITARI

Making the PYP happen
Implementation for administrators
Why inquiry
The essential activity for keeping our paradigm current is
persistent questioning. I will use the term inquiry. Inquiry is the
engine of vitality and self-renewal.
Pascal, 1990
The PYP is committed to inquiry as the preferred approach to teaching and learning. However, this
commitment to inquiry is not confined to classroom practices. The PYP believes that good schools are
inquiry-based schools in which all members of the school’s community are continually reflecting on their
practice in the context of a commitment to continuous personal, professional and institutional improvement.
It further believes that:
! the approaches to learning it is advocating are relevant outside the classroom and will have an
impact on the culture of the school
! without an understanding of this impact the curriculum cannot achieve its potential
! inquiry, as a means of learning, changing and improving is as valid for the school as a whole as
it is for a group of students in the classroom.
The PYP supports the view, well documented in research, that:
! improvements in individual classrooms only take pace in the context of general school improvement
! the adults in a school must model the knowledge, skills, attitudes and actions they advocate for
students
! effective schools, like effective classrooms, are places in which purposeful, open-ended inquiry
is a feature of the culture
! inquiry enables individuals and groups to clarify their vision and to refocus on purpose
! effective schools make a commitment to continuous improvement
! effective schools develop the habit of collaboration while allowing space for people to be
individuals, just as the PYP promotes collaboration within the community of PYP schools while
allowing space for schools to reflect their own cultures.
Guidelines for Implementation
! Develop the habits of reflective practice, of questioning one’s own practice and the practices of
the school.
! Encourage a climate of inquiry among staff, students, parents, board members.
! Structure the process of collaborative decision making as an open-ended inquiry.
! Use this process for the development of school policies and products.
© IBO 2000 93