• What does PYP stand for?  PYP stands for Primary Years Program and refers to the International Baccalaureate curriculum used in the early childhood and the primary school at Vilnius International School (VIS).

• What curriculum model does Vilnius International School use?  VIS uses the International Baccalaureate Primary Year Program (PYP) designed for children from 3 to 12.  PYP focuses on the overall growth of the child, aiming not only at intellectual progress but providing as much attention to social, physical, emotional and cultural needs in addition to academic development. The PYP curriculum focuses on six universal transdisciplinary themes:

• What does the curriculum consist of? The learning process within the PYP curriculum incorporates five essential elements.  First, students are given opportunity to gain relevant and globally significant knowledge. Second, children develop an understanding of concepts, which allows them to make connections throughout their learning. Third, students acquire transdisciplinary and disciplinary skills.  Next, students learn to develop attitudes that will lead to international-mindedness and, finally, the most important issue is that students are provided opportunity to take action as a consequence of what they have learned.

• What are units of inquiry? Guided by the transdisciplinary themes, teachers design units of inquiry that VIS students research and study in depth. The units of inquiry are designed so that to encourage students to formulate questions and learn how to answer them. This approach helps children become motivated and independent learners. The themes are implemented into the curriculum through the subject areas. It means that subjects included at VIS curriculum such as math, languages, science, information technologies, art, music, physical education, and other subjects are studied within the units of inquiry when appropriate.

• Why did VIS choose the PYP as a curriculum model?  The International Baccalaureate PYP, MYP (Middle Year Programme), and DP (Diploma Programme) were developed to accommodate transient families who were experiencing difficulties transferring between school programs. VIS chose the PYP for its emphasis on the development of higher-order thinking, site-based curriculum planning that easily accommodates local education standards, and a pronounced commitment to internationalism and social responsibility.

• What are trans-disciplinary skills?  Trans-disciplinary skills are what we want students to be able to do. These skill sets fall into the following five categories:

1) thinking skills: comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation, dialectical thinking, and meta-cognition

2) research skills: formulating questions, observation, planning, collecting, recording, organizing, interpreting, and presenting data

3) social skills: accepting responsibility, respecting others, cooperating, resolving conflict

4) communication skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing

5) self-management skills: gross motor, fine motor, spatial awareness, organization, time management, safety, informed choices, codes of behavior.   

 

• What will students at VIS know when they complete the program?  Knowledge taught in a modern educational environment goes far beyond memorizing facts and figures.  By nature, knowledge taught should be significant, relevant, engaging and challenging.  The best way to achieve this is to teach content in the context of organizing themes that transcend subject areas traditionally taught alone. A simple example would be teaching students to read a thermometer in conjunction with the unit on weather, or explore the biography genre during the unit on famous inventors.  

• What is the advantage of an interdisciplinary program of study? An interdisciplinary program focuses on students constructing meaning for themselves. It enables students to make connections between disciplines and encourages them to think and act much like scientists, writers, politicians, etc.  The interdisciplinary approach to learning makes what students are doing in the classroom purposeful and applicable to life in the outside world and ensures that they are not just “doing school for the sake of doing school”. 

• Are all subjects taught through interdisciplinary thematic units? No, unit themes are integrated into a subject only when it serves to deepen a learning experience by making it genuinely meaningful. An example of appropriate unit integration in mathematics would be teaching students to read bar and line graphs during the fourth grade “Money” unit.  Mathematics is primarily taught as a “stand-alone” subject.  Language arts may be taught as a stand-alone topic, or it may be integrated with history, social studies, ethics, or even science. 

• What is meant by key concepts?  A conceptually based curriculum engages thinking, avoids “coverage” and fosters the transfer of knowledge and skills to new or similar contexts. It enables students to process facts and knowledge in terms of their relationships between ideas in order to promote deeper understanding. Units of Inquiry are modeled around the following key concepts: form, function, causation, change, connection, perspective, responsibility and reflection. 

• What is the learner profile?  In addition taking responsibility for providing a balanced and stimulating academic program of study, VIS recognizes the importance of cultivating specific habits and outlooks towards oneself, one’s community, and the world at large. The learner profile outlines the kind of person we hope to become, both as teachers and as students.  At VIS we strive to be:  inquirers, knowledgeable, thinkers, communicators, caring, risk-takers, principled, open-minded, balanced, and reflective. 

• What are the VIS Units of Inquiry and how are the units determined?   VIS Units of Inquiry are outlined separately. The units were developed by a committee of administrators and teachers who evaluated PYP program documents, Lithuanian Ministry of Education program documents, and curriculum materials of other international schools to come up with a cycle of units that best meets the needs of the Lithuanian and foreign students studying at VIS. Units of Inquiry are reviewed and updated annually. 

• Why doesn’t VIS use textbooks?  In fact, VIS uses textbooks for many classes.  We use the Pupa series in our first through third grade Lithuanian courses and we use Houghton Mifflin texts for our upper elementary mathematics courses.  We do not use textbooks as the only teaching resource.  Textbooks are useful to support instruction and for student reference.  We strive to use literature as primary text source to teach literature, social studies, history, and geography.  In today’s classroom, the range of teaching resources is limitless. In many instances, a textbook limits a child’s curiosity and undermines the learning process by oversimplifying topics or failing to engage higher order thinking skills.

• How do math standards compare to other schools?   In order to ensure that our students are well prepared for any math program they may encounter, staff compared the Lithuanian Ministry of Education and the IBO Scope and Sequence documents for each age cohort and selected the more rigorous standard of the two. The math program is supplemented with project-based math activities and Internet resources.