News from Kyoto International School

I hope everyone is enjoying some holiday and family time together. It’s always a long trek for the students from August to December, so they really need this break!  

This message is about a change to our school curriculum that we have been considering for some time. From August 2023, we will be continuing the IB PYP into Grade 6 and in future our MYP programme will begin in Grade 7. Many schools do this and there are a number of benefits to students from this approach. 

One of the main reasons for this change is that Grade 6 students are still quite young and can sometimes struggle with the transition to the MYP. Schools that continue the PYP approach in Grade 6 often find that the students benefit from working with fewer teachers. By contrast, the challenge for many students when Grade 6 is taught with an MYP approach is that they will usually have four or five additional teachers to work with and each subject has a separate schedule of assignments and assessments. 

In practice, what this change will mean for our Grade 6 students is that they would be taught with a similar approach to Grade 5. The students would have one main homeroom teacher and the main subjects would be integrated through Units of Inquiry. To ensure the academic level is correct for Grade 6, our MYP team will be working closely with the PYP teachers to ensure an appropriate progression of learning in each subject area. We will also continue to use MAP Growth testing twice a year to externally monitor and check progress. At the end of Grade 6, the students will then transition to the IB Middle Years Programme (MYP) when they start Grade 7. The MYP will run from Grade 7 to Grade 10, as a four year programme, finishing with the MYP E-Assessments and receiving an MYP Certificate at the end of Grade 10.  

The consultation process leading to the decision to extend the PYP to Grade 6 has included all staff, the KIS board, our current Grade 5 parents, and also information gathered from other schools and the IBO (International Baccalaureate Organisation). After a process of looking at the pros and cons of this change, we are agreed that a PYP Grade 6 would be the best way forwards for KIS and the board has now approved this change. Our admissions information, handbooks and so on will be updated in due course.

Enjoy the rest of the holiday! 

The outcome of our recent MYP verification visit is that KIS has now been approved for authorisation as an International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme (MYP) school. We can now say, ‘KIS is an MYP school’. This framework is designed for students aged 11 to 16 to make practical connections between what they learn at school and the world they live. The goal is preparing them for success in further study and in life. This official addition enhances our schoool mission of ‘inspriing active learners, developing global citizens‘ from Pre-Kindergarten right up to Grade 10.

We can all be very proud of this achievement and the school Principal, Myles Jackson, would like to thank everyone who took part in the process. There has been so much effort put into this over an extended period of time by our MYP teaching team. As the trailblazers who have been implementing this programme for many months, our teachers have had to adapt and modify and make so many changes to planning, teaching, learning and assessment, in order to achieve this ensure this success. They have delivered an outstanding result for improving learning in the school. Thank you all so much.

We are particularly grateful to our MYP Coordinator, Ms Smita, who arrived in August and has been non-stop on this since then, bringing deep levels of expertise and commitment to guide us all through the challenging final preparations and this has been key to the school’s success.

In addition, our MYP students and parents have also been deeply engaged in ‘learning to learn’ in an MYP school and their participation in the authorisation process has been outstanding. We should also recognise the shining example of the PYP team and their implementation of the programme, along with the steadfast support of our office team, and the firm support and guidance of the school Board. All have played an important part in achieving this milestone for the school now and for many generations of students to come.  

Congratulations everyone!