Category Archives: 1.3 Trust & Respect

PYP and CfE – similarities and differences

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The Primary Years Programme (PYP) of the IB has a lot of similarities in terms of encouraging self-reliant learning as CfE. There are some slight differences in curricular areas however. The PYP curricular areas are as follows:

  • Language
  • Mathematics
  • Science
  • Social Studies
  • Arts
  • Personal, Social, and Physical Education

These curricular areas seem to be a little bit broader than those of CfE, which are:

  • Literacy and Language
  • Numeracy
  • Sciences
  • Social Studies
  • Expressive Arts
  • Health and Wellbeing
  • Technologies
  • Religious and Moral Education

Both PYP and CfE are centred around pupil-led activities and a fairly high degree of student choice. This allows the students to have more of a say in what they want to learn, making their academic learning more applicable to students’ everyday lives and the world they live in, making students more likely to remain engaged in lessons. Both curricula incorporate cross-curricular lessons into learning – for example, a science lesson on the life cycle of a plant can lead into social studies lessons about biodiversity and sustainability, and how we as humans fit into that. This allows students to make and develop their own connections between the lessons they learn in school and the everyday lives that they lead, thus making lessons more relevant and personal to each child.

There are some differences between the two curricula however. For example, in CfE, while technology is worked into lessons where it can be, most schools have set ICT lessons in which the majority of the technology curriculum is taught. PYP, however, incorporates technologies into all the other curricular areas which may help students to be able to understand the uses and relevance of technology to them in their whole life rather than just in an ICT class.  Similarly, CfE has a set core curricular area – RME – in which children explore different religions and cultures, and develop skills which will help them to deal with and answer ethic questions. PYP, again, strives to incorporate this into every curricular area instead of having set lessons set aside specifically for the purpose of religious and moral education.

Overall, I feel that PYP and CfE have more similarities than they do differences. Both curricula strives to prepare their students for future life and future learning, guiding them to be leaders in their own personal learning journey through a wide range of curricular areas, while teachers are learning alongside them. One definite similarity of the two curricula is that learning and teaching is a lifelong journey – after all, you never stop learning!

Which of the IB’s progressive educational trends align with CfE?

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Trends in education and they way in which children and young people are taught in schools is constantly evolving, and has changed a fair bit in recent years. Teaching and learning used to be centred around test scores and strict academic ability, with very little flexibility within learning methods to allow children to achieve to the best of their ability. With the introduction of CfE, however, teaching and learning is now much more flexible, with opportunities for each individual child to flourish. There is now much more room for different ways to work, and for healthy debates when it comes to a difference in opinion between students.

The progressive educational trends of the IB are as follows:

  • critical analysis
  • student choice
  • transdisciplinary
  • range of skills-testing
  • constructivism
  • child-centred
  • education of the whole child
  • criterion referenced
  • AV and AL (languages)
  • open-plan rooms
  • multiple perspectives

More than one of these trends align with CfE, for example, CfE is also a very child-centred curriculum, as it focuses on building up each and every single child to become successful learners, effective contributors, confident individuals, and responsible citizens. It also takes into account that children learn from a variety of visual, aural and kinaesthetic teaching. Incorporating all three of these learning styles into it, CfE shows that it has the best standard of achievement for each individual at its heart. Furthermore, entwined within CfE is GIRFEC, meaning that every decision a teacher makes has to consider how each child in their care will benefit from this decision, conveying CfE’s child-centred mission.

Furthermore, most schools employing CfE incorporate a lot of student choice within their lessons. A lot of IDL topics are left open, so that the children can decide what they would like to know more about, and thus what their topic should be. Similarly, unlike in past times, CfE allows for a lot of student discussion and expression, allowing for multiple perspectives to be expressed and accepted.

A lot of CfE schools nowadays have – or are at least trialling – open-plan classrooms. I have taught CfE in both open-plan and closed-plan classrooms, and in my personal experience, I feel that younger children (mainly primary 1 and 2) benefit from having an open-plan classroom. It allows for access to more different people and resources, and makes that introduction to teamwork and sharing all that much easier and comfortable for children at that young age.

Overall, there is clearly an overlap between the educational trends of CfE and the IB curricula. Both are very clearly centred on placing the child in the middle and working around them to allow each child to flourish to the best of their own ability in a variety of different situations.

The IB Learner Profile attributes and the four capacities of CfE

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The Scottish Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) has four main capacities, which are as follows:

  • Successful Learners – encouraging students to reach their highest possible standards of personal achievement by being open to new ways of thinking/learning, and to be motivated and enthusiastic about their own learning. Successful Learners are able to use communication, literacy, numeracy and technology skills to aid them in thinking creatively and in making reasoned evaluations both independently and as part of a group.
  • Confident Individuals – encouraging students to have a secure sense of self-respect and a secure set of values and beliefs that they can use to develop their own views of the world and help navigate their own lives within it. Confident Individuals are encouraged to independently take calculated risks and make informed decisions in order for them to have the best emotional, physical and mental wellbeing possible.
  • Responsible Citizens – have respect for others and are encouraged to participate responsibly in social, economic, and political issues. Responsible Citizens are able to recognise and understand different beliefs and cultures, and use this information to help them to better understand about the world they live in. Responsible Citizens are also able to understand complex issues and be able to make informed and rational decisions when faced with ethical issues.
  • Effective Contributors – students are encouraged to have an enterprising mindset, and to approach this with self-sufficiency and resiliency. Effective Contributors can take initiative in a variety of different settings, and are able to communicate and are encouraged to take on a leadership role from time-to-time. They are able to create and develop, and to apply critical thinking in new situations, both independently and when practising teamwork.

Throughout their entire learning career, IB students are encouraged to work on and develop ten particular attributes, known as the IB ‘Learner Profile’, which represents the IB mission statements. The Learner Profile attributes are as follows:

  • Inquirers – encouraging students to be curious, to do adequate research, and to have enthusiasm for their own learning, both independently and within a team.
  • Knowledgeable – developing their conceptual understanding, and drawing in inspiration from both local and global contexts to help further their own knowledge.
  • Thinkers – encouraging students to use critical thinking when approached with complex and/or ethical problems in order to find a tactful way to deal with said problems.
  • Communicators – encouraging students to communicate confidently with their peers and with others around the world, and to be able to listen to and take on board the opinions of other individuals and groups. The IB aims to guide students into communicating effectively in more than one language to encourage barrier-free global communication.
  • Principled – encouraging students to have dignity and respect for justice, being able to act appropriately in accordance with their individual beliefs, and being able to understand the consequences their actions will have on themselves and on their peers.
  • Open-minded – students are open to new ideas and experiences, and are not fixated on doing things any one way. They are able to learn and grow from past experiences and are able to use past failures to help them improve and flourish in the future.
  • Caring – showing sympathy, empathy, and respect to the world around us and those in it, and being able to incorporate the worldviews of others into our own lives ibn order to make the world an easier place to live in for everyone.
  • Risk-takers – encouraging students to be able to evaluate new situations appropriately and take calculated risks to be able to get the most out of their learning experiences. Students are resilient and flexible in the face of change. Students are also encouraged to take calculated risks that are slightly out of their comfort zone in order to be enriched in new experiences that can further their learning.
  • Balanced – encouraging students to recognise the importance of balancing their emotional, physical and mental wellbeing within their learning. Students also recognise that they will be balancing working independently and interdependently with their peers and with the rest of the world
  • Reflective – Students can look back upon their past learning experiences and use these, along with the understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses, to better their own learning in future endeavours.

Although the IB and CfE curricula differ somewhat, there is a lot of crossover within the four capacities of CfE and the ten attributes of the IB Learner Profile. For example, the IB idea of encouraging students to become Inquirers and Knowledgeable is similar to the CfE capacity of being a Successful Learner, as all of these things include being able to think critically and openly both individually and within teams to better their own learning. Similarly, the IB idea of being a Communicator relates to being an Effective Contributor, as both encourage students to vocalise their ideas and thoughts and communicate these to their peers, while also taking on board what their peers have to say. The IB ideas of being Principled and Caring links to the CfE capacity of Responsible Citizens, as all three of these are centred around working closely with the rest of the world, and being able to understand and express different cultures and beliefs, while also readily and respectfully tackling social, economic and political issues. Furthermore, within CfE, we have the idea of ‘growth’ and ‘fixed’ midsets, and encouraging students to always have a growth mindset. This similar idea is also conveyed within the IB attribute of being Open-minded, as both ideas teach children to be open to new experiences and strategies of learning. Overall, although there are some differences between the two curricula, it is clear that both CfE and IB have similar missions in encouraging every individual student to utilise their own skillsets and attributes in order to be the best learner that they can be.

How do the IB aims align with the main aims of CfE?

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Upon initial research into the International Baccalaureate (IB), it seems very clear to me that the main mission of the programme is to help shape children and young people into caring, respectful, and knowledgeable individuals who will be able to work seamlessly with people from all over the world without barriers such as language or cultural differences. The IB appears to focus greatly on building up skills and attributes that will help students to build strong relationships and work with others – such as ethical reasoning, environmental awareness, and imagination – rather than a heavy focus on academic ability. These attributes come under the term of the ‘Learner Profile’.

The aim of the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) is “to help children and young people to gain the knowledge, skills and attributes needed for a life in the 21st century, including skills for learning, life, and work.” For students aged 3-18, CfE is centred around being a flexible and accommodating way of learning and teaching, with the individual needs and requirements of every child, both emotionally and academically, at the heart of it. CfE and the IB curriculum do differ slightly, however the general consensus of both curricula is to aid individual young people’s learning to allow them to have the highest possible opportunity for personal achievement, and to be able to have fruitful learning experiences.

Under the IB term of the ‘Learner Profile’, students are encouraged to become inquirers, knowledgeable, thinkers, communicators, principled, open-minded, caring, risk-takers, balanced, and reflective. Some of these particular attributes encompass the four main capacities of CfE, for example, IB defines being reflective as thoughtfully considering the world and one’s own ideas and experiences. Working towards understanding our own strengths and weaknesses in order to support our learning and personal development. This is similar to the capacity of ‘successful learners’ within CfE, as to be truly successful in your own learning, you have to be able to reflect on past work, failures and achievements in order to be able to get the most of your learning experience as your progress through it. Similarly, within IB, the terms of ‘inquirers’ and ‘communicators’ are centred around guiding children into being able to think and solve problems individually, and then to communicate these ideas to their peers, while also listening to the ideas of their peers and providing helpful and constructive feedback. These ideas are also a large part of being ‘confident individuals’ and ‘effective contributors’ within CfE. Furthermore, one of the IB’s main aims is to help make the world a better and more peaceful place, doing so by encouraging attributes such as respect and care, also encouraged within CfE’s ‘responsible citizen’ capacity.

When I first read the IB’s mission statement, which included “these programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate, and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right”, I was immediately transported back into my own primary 3 classroom. My teacher had been holding up a book to us, her class. The book had a shiny black hardback cover. She had looked at us, and said “this book is pink.” I still remember the chorus of excitement in the room of seven-year-olds as we all rushed to correct the teacher in her hilarious mistake. “No Miss! That’s black!” we’d said. Instead of correcting herself, the teacher looked at the book again, and confused, repeated “this book is pink”. This went on for several moments until eventually she turned the book around, showing us that although the back cover and the spine of the book was black, the front cover was indeed pink. From the angle she was holding the book, we could only see the black part and she could only see the pink. The teacher then put the book to the side and said to us “you were very quick to correct me, even although you couldn’t see the book from my point of view. While you weren’t wrong in saying that the book was black, neither was I in saying that it was pink. Just because you are right doesn’t mean that someone with a different opinion to you is not.” This was my first real taste of developing an understanding about differences of opinion and how people will often disagree with you but that doesn’t automatically make them wrong. It is incredibly important that children learn from a young age that not everyone is the same, be it how they look/think/act, where they come from, or the cultures they follow, and that no one is wrong just because they have a different opinion to you. Everyone should be able to feel welcomed and included. This is encompassed well in the IB mission statement.

Resource Allocation Input

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Recently, our group of MA1 took part in a workshop centred around resource allocation. During this workshop we were split into five groups, and each group was given a resource pack with the intention of using the resources inside to build a support kit for new students starting university. Upon giving us our resource packs, our lecturer asked us to discuss our ideas before opening the envelope. My group – group five – decided to create a student handbook which would contain things like a map of campus, study tips, budgeting tips and other things of that nature, which would allow new students to explore both the social and academic aspects of university. When we did open our envelopes, we found that group one had an abundance of resources in their pack, including coloured paper, coloured pens, pencils, rulers, glue, scissors etc. Group two’s resources were similar, while group three had a little less and group four had even less still. My group, however, had only two sticky notes, a paperclip, and a pencil. Immediately, we noticed that we were at a disadvantage to the other groups, but we tried our best to make the most of what we had.

Our disadvantage seemed only to be emphasised when our lecturer gave his continued support and encouragement to groups one and two, however he tended to ignore the other three groups and made his disdain towards our idea very obvious. When it came time to present our ideas to the room, again groups one and two were met with support, encouragement, and praise. Our lecturer became gradually more disinterested by the presentations as he made his way through the groups, and by the time it was our turn to present he seemed to be paying no attention at all, making our group feel as though not only did we start out with seemingly less than everyone else, but now we weren’t being listened to! Surely this wasn’t a fair way to be treated?

Of course, this was the meaning behind this input: to highlight to us that in our profession we will encounter many different people from an array of different backgrounds, and many of our pupils will come from disadvantaged backgrounds and will may not have all the resources and/or means to be able to achieve their full potential. That we, as teachers, should be encouraging our pupils to work as hard as they can and that their limited resources do not need to stop them from flourishing. Sometimes, education facilities tend to give more support to the students who are doing well and neglecting those who perhaps aren’t doing so well, when in reality it is these students who are more likely to need the support. It is crucial as a teacher to be able and willing to support every child, regardless of their background.

For me personally, a truly eye-opening part of this input was after our lecturer explained the purpose of this input, he asked us all if we had noticed the difference in each groups’ resources and also in his attitudes towards each group. Our group had noticed straight away that we were at a disadvantage, however group one said that they hadn’t noticed at all that they were being given more and treated better until it was explained to them afterwards. Our lecturer went on to explain that often, people in a more privileged position often overlook those who are not. This was something I hadn’t previously thought about in depth and was eye-opening for me to think about.

Overall, this input served as an extremely effective way to let us know how it feels to be at a disadvantage and how to cope with these issues and the attainment gap effectively as teachers.