Student Action

by St Andrews International School, Green Valley

Student Action is an integral part of the PYP. It provides learners with opportunities to make significant contributions, both independently and collectively, in their community and the world around them to become change makers. No matter how big or small, all children can choose to make a difference. Taking Action is an essential element of the PYP curriculum and inquiry based learning. It can also be thought of as a ‘conclusion’ to learning. When taking action, learners make connections to the new knowledge they have learnt and apply their skills to real-life issues and opportunities. Action can take many forms, and could include:

 a change in attitude

 a consideration or plan for action in the future

 a demonstration of shared responsibility and respect for themselves, others and the environment

 a commitment to leading or participating in collective action with others

 an engagement in school decision-making

 a commitment to support local communities

By promoting Student Action in our PYP curriculum, learners question, wonder and reflect about themselves and the rapidly changing world around them, seeking out challenges and opportunities to broaden their learning and self awareness. We want our learners to think critically to recognise issues in the world. We want them to feel empowered to be the future changemakers, who find solutions that really make a difference to become well rounded individuals who not only love to learn, but grow intellectually, personally, emotionally and socially.

Central idea

Through play, we express our feelings and ideas.

Play is so important to learn! Play provides building blocks for communication, social skills, curiosity, problem solving and critical thinking. It is through play that children at a very early age engage and interact in the world around them.

In Nursery, we have been focusing on the development of the children's communication skills this term through reading and enjoying popular tales and nursery rhymes stories such as Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Through stories and role play, the children have been applying many new words that help them to communicate their feelings and express their ideas. They have been learning some expressions such as sad, happy and angry. Of course, we did many fun things such as making porridge, going on an adventure to find Goldilocks, water play and face painting!

We will continue this unit of inquiry after the holiday and the Nursery children will continue to learn about themselves and the world around them through play!

Central idea

People have a responsibility to care for living things.

The Kindergarten children have been learning about how people have a responsibility to take care of living things. We started the unit by using our thinking skills and explored our school surroundings to discover the plants and animals that share this space with us. We reflected upon how we could take action to care, respect and protect them and invited our parents to help us do just this in our learning journey!

During their learning journey, the children enjoyed making and hanging yummy coconut and peanut butter bird feeders at home and at school, to help nourish the birds through the cool season. Using their knowledge of how to care and nurture plants, the children taught their parents how to water and pot seedlings to grow at home.

Throughout the unit of inquiry, the children have developed their inquiry and observation skills to investigate how plants grow, by growing many different things! We have also cared for tadpoles in the classroom and have watched their amazing life cycle first hand, using our thinking skills to compare this to the life cycle of plants.

The Kindergarten children have been fascinated with the beautiful nature around us and have shown themselves to be real investigators and thinkers whilst diving deep into understanding the natural processes and how we can have a positive impact.

Central idea

Different art forms allow people to express themselves in different ways.

As part of our current unit of inquiry into how different art forms allow people to express themselves in different ways, Reception has inquired into the work of a selection of famous artists. We have studied artworks produced by Kandinsky, Jackson Pollock and Georgia O'Keeffe, encouraging the children to give their own personal responses of whether they liked them…or not!

For example, when studying Jason Pollock, the children made reflections such as ‘I don’t like it, it is messy’ and ‘It isn’t pretty because it is very brown’! The learners enjoyed sharing their personal responses to art, demonstrating excellent communication skills. From this, the children then recreated their own paintings, inspired by these artists, putting their own personal flair and twist, guided by their personal preferences and reflections.

To dive deeper and to discover more about the different artforms, the children thoroughly enjoyed exploring the use of different media such as clay, sand and natural materials such as stones, leaves and flowers. Throughout the unit, the children have had agency to create their own works of art, expressing themselves using different materials and techniques which are currently being displayed in our very own art exhibition, which will be shared during our learning journey.

In collaboration with Thai and Music teachers, the children have made connections with other art forms such as music, dance and drama and have proven to be excellent risk takers by creating their own dances and songs, which will be shared during the learning journey. What a fantastic unit of inquiry we have had, where the children have expressed themselves creatively in many different ways!

Central idea

Choices of role models reflect the belief and values of individuals and societies.

To start the new calendar year, Year 1 have been exploring their new unit of inquiry, considering role models in our local community and how everyday people can be role models and heroes. The children have strived to investigate what makes a role model, who we think role models are and if indeed anyone could be a role model!

To start, we tuned in by exploring what it means to be a role model. Using a range of mediums to explore the different interpretations of a role model and thinking about who we know that are already role models. As inquiring learners, the Year 1 children began to make links with our previous unit of inquiry and thought about the important role models we have in our community.

They reflected on the work of key workers and how they indeed did make some of the most important role models in our ever-changing society. They finally concluded that doctors, firemen, policemen and cleaners were in fact superheroes! Going even further, the children wanted to discover more by creating a questionnaire for their parents and teachers to find out the different role models the adults in their lives have. When this information was collected, the children used their connection skills by grouping the role models into categories and voted if they agreed or disagreed with the adults’ choices, using balanced arguments.

Once all this information was brought together, the children began to think about who their role models were and why. To complete a wonderful unit of inquiry, the children had the chance to dress up as a role model of their choice and present to their peers all about their selected role model. Fantastic work from Year 1!

Central idea

Cities around the world create structures to meet the needs of the community.

We started the unit of inquiry by tuning into what the children already knew about cities by building them in different ways, using Lego, cardboard, drawings and scratch. The children showed incredible creativity in their agency to present what they already knew about cities - we were so impressed with how knowledgeable they were!

We challenged the learners to develop their research skills to find out more about a city they had visited or a city from their family’s home country by interviewing their families. From this, the children then dived deeper to research famous buildings, transport links, food and things to do in their chosen city. Not only did the children become more knowledgeable about their chosen city, but they also developed their computing and research skills, learning how to cut and paste photos, paraphrasing research and performing safe internet searching to make their very own digital travel brochure.

Being travel experts in their own chosen cities, the children collaborated using their newfound knowledge and facts by agreeing on a shared definition for what a city is and how they compare to towns and villages. Going further, the children then compared their cities, finding connections about how their cities serve communities in similar and different ways, and then went on an adventure in our village community to explore the different forms of transport.

To take action and present their learning, the children created cityscapes of buildings and famous structures in their cities. Using green screen, they used their travel brochures to make persuasive travel videos. Our communication skills came in handy when trying to persuade people that our city would be the best destination for a holiday!

Central idea

The Earth’s physical geography has an impact on human settlements.

We tuned into our central idea by exploring the form of geographical features and what we mean by physical and human features by hunting for examples around the school. To find out more and explore settlements and buildings across the globe, the children used Google Earth and visited Mini-Siam to develop their skills in using digital maps and atlases.

During this unit of inquiry, the Year 3 children have become more knowledgeable about the world map, studying physical and human geography around the world. We inquired how these features can affect where people live in human settlements around the world, looking into how vegetation, climate and location have an impact on where people choose to live.

For their final action, the children applied their newfound knowledge and skills, having agency to choose a biome to build a settlement considering the natural features in the environment. The children demonstrated fantastic coding skills when creating a digital biome settlement using Minecraft Education, thinking carefully and making connections about the materials available, the climate, vegetation and wildlife.

We were impressed with how principled and caring the children were in the decision making phases, making their settlements sustainable and kind to their respective biome environments.

Central idea

The way people use and understand electricity has developed in response to the changing Earth.

Year 4 have been having a brilliantly shocking time working on our electricity unit of inquiry this half term! To tune in and find out about our electrifying unit, Year 4 explored different electrical items and how they work. From this, the children investigated how to make a circuit using batteries, wires and light bulbs. Applying their knowledge, we used thinking and communication skills in teamwork challenges to create switches and add buzzers to our circuits. We also tested insulators and conductors using Makey Makeys.

The children were curious about where electricity comes from. This led us to an inquiry about renewable energy. Mr. Ben brought all sorts of interesting items for us to investigate; solar panels, wind turbines, electric motors and a bicycle generator! The learners have used solar panels to water the garden, charged a battery using a wind turbine and even charged a phone using the bicycle generator!

We have designed safety posters, created a vocabulary wall to learn technical words, created our own Loop Games, made fruit batteries and have even made our hair stand up with static electricity!

For their action, the children wanted to share their knowledge and inquiry skills with their parents, hosting a hands-on learning journey full of fun experiments and presentations.

Inquiry skills have been at the heart of this unit, where the children have developed new knowledge through asking questions, testing predictions, thinking critically about their findings and making conclusions, whilst of course having lots of fun!

Central idea

Humans have a responsibility to ensure equal rights and realities for all.

Year 5 have inquired deeper into human rights and how they link to the Global Development Goals and their responsibilities as informed students and members of our local communities. The children have developed their research skills by finding out about the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and why some people may not have them.

From this, the children deepened their knowledge by researching global case studies of children struggling for basic rights such as a quality education, a decent standard of living, gender equality and freedom from modern or bonded slavery. Our literacy lessons were closely integrated within this unit of inquiry and the children also made strong connections in their reading the story of Iqbal who, from a very young age, became an advocate for human’s rights around the globe.

Taking inspiration from this, the children also wanted to take action by selecting a human right they wanted to research further and raise awareness about. To discover more about difficulties faced by our local community and to inform their research, the children organised an interview with the local charity ‘Hand to Hand’ to ask questions about people in our local community living with afflicted rights that are supported by local charities.

In groups, the children chose how to raise awareness of these local and global issues. Demonstrating fantastic leadership skills, the children organised lunchtime activities such as dodgeball, beat the goalie and healthy pancakes to raise money donations for both ‘Mercy’ and’ Hand to Hand’ charities. Not only did the children develop their social and research skills, they also developed their problem solving skills in becoming changemakers to real life scenarios. Well done Year 5!

Central idea

Humanity’s decisions may impact the stability of nature and humankind.

Year 6 have adopted a principled and caring nature, using their communication skills to share their thoughts about how humanity’s decisions may affect the stability of nature and humankind. The children started their unit of inquiry by exploring and finding out about the different forms of sustainable energy sources. This led into discussions and student wonderings linked to our lines of inquiry about sustainability.

Through carefully analysing a variety of evidence sources, such as watching video documentaries, reading news articles and observing photos, the children discovered that one of the main causes of climate change is deforestation through human economic activity. They all felt very passionate about this and wanted to deepen their inquiry to find out some of the economic decisions that local and global businesses make to either protect nature and the environment or damage it.

As part of their action, Year 6 made presentations about the effects of deforestation whilst also having agency to choose the different ways to show their learning. For example, Kahoots, timelines, stories and even imaginative board games so people could play whilst learning! In Literacy, they learned how to write a balanced argument and applied these skills to writing a balanced argument about deforestation, finding it incredibly hard to find an argument for cutting down trees! In Maths, we inquired into our carbon footprint and how our lives add to climate change. All in all it was a very informative unit and the children learnt a lot from it.

In their Thai lessons, KG has been learning about the native Thai plants within our beautiful, green surroundings, planting even more plants for them to care for! To complement and connect with their learning in PYP lessons, the children have learnt how to name the different parts of a plant in Thai. International-mindedness is the backbone of the PYP and as a PYP school, we share a collaborative commitment with our students and teachers to communicate with others in different languages.

Learning through play is an essential element of our Early Years PYP curriculum, to allow our children to learn and grow in a holistic and child centered way! Connecting with their learning in PYP lessons, our children are developing their gross motor skills in a fun, play-based environment both in the pool and outdoors. Learning to play with others through physical activity not only increases our focus to learn but promotes healthy growth and development for even the littlest of learners!

As part of the unit of their inquiry, Reception have been expressing themselves through many different artforms…especially in their Music lessons! The children have been experimenting with the sounds of different percussion instruments using different techniques such as striking, shaking, scraping, plucking or rubbing. Music develops coordination and improves children’s motor skills that can lead to greater creativity and memory.