This week I felt as if I had been transported to the Kennedy Space Centre hearing about ragging, drilling, logging, pulling, tracking, tagging and layering from the Landing dashboard.
However, I was sitting at Rossall School hearing all about the intricacies and benefits of The Hub, a complete School database system.
Being in this situation made me realise that my prior knowledge of these words was not helpful, but the fact that I had the skills to find out and learn of their true meaning was key.
Through the PYP, the teaching of language is embedded in the curriculum and responds to a child’s prior knowledge and experiences, needs and interests; it is not taught in isolation following a predetermined curriculum designed by educationalists for the masses.
Children may be able to read, write and spell words as an isolated skill but applying those words to a real-life situation and context may not be as easy.
Throughout the PYP language is key to all learning, the children are actively encouraged to develop their social skills through collaboratively working with others, their communication skills through reading, writing and presenting their work and their intellectual skills by being an inquirer and thinker.
Children need to be in a position where they are able to respond to the unknown and have the necessary skills available for any future learning and lifestyle.
