Celebrate the power of learning!

PYP Exhibition Night – Year 6

Our Year 6 students and teachers recently wrapped up their 2021 PYP Exhibition, and what a journey it has been! After 9 weeks of living and breathing the PYP Exhibition (PYPx), on Thursday 20 May 2021, the ISL community came together virtually to celebrate and recognise the hard work of the Year 6 students through the launch of the PYPx websites.

What is the PYP Exhibition

Learning in the IB Primary Years Programme (PYP) provides many formal and informal opportunities for students to demonstrate how they have developed and applied their knowledge, conceptual understandings, skills and learner profile attributes through the inquiries they undertake. The PYP exhibition is a notable example of these opportunities.

All IB programmes include a culminating or consolidating learning experience in their final year: the exhibition in the PYP; the personal project in the Middle Years Programme (MYP); the extended essay in the Diploma Programme (DP).

In the PYP exhibition, students demonstrate their understanding of an issue or opportunity they have chosen to explore. They undertake their investigation both individually and with their peers, together with the guidance of a mentor. Through the exhibition, students demonstrate their ability to take responsibility for their learning—and their capacity to take action—as they are actively engaged in planning, presenting and assessing learning.

The exhibition is a powerful demonstration of student agency, as well as the agency of the community that has nurtured them through their years in the PYP. The learning community participates in the exhibition, supporting and celebrating the development of internationally minded students who make a positive difference in their lives and the lives of others.

PYPx 2021

Unique to each school and cohort, PYPx 2021 at ISL focused on the theme: Sharing the Planet, and was connected to the UN Goals for Sustainable Development (SDGs). According to their own interests, each student identified a goal that matters to them. Some students looked at issues connected to gender equality, others reflected on how poverty can affect the world and ways to improve it, and others focused on how renewable energy works.

Explore the work of our talented Year 6 students

The exhibition process required students to identify their own inquiry questions to guide their process. Research extended beyond media to include personal interviews with experts, surveys of the community, and observations. An opportunity to show themselves as self-directed learners, students had to revise initial inquiry questions, manage the stress that comes with following timelines for big projects, and overcome setbacks as they worked to build their presentation of learning. After thorough reflection on their new learning, students took action to have an impact on the chosen Global Goal for Sustainable Development. Ranging from donations to charities; making a hanging garden to grow more plants; modelising electric cars on Minecraft; and designing games to promote sharing of food, all actions were intended to help build a better world.

The exhibition is always a bittersweet moment, one that helps us celebrate the extraordinary growth in our learners while also having to say goodbye as we send them off to the next phase of their academic journey. We are very proud of our Y6 cohort, both for the work that they carried out and for their resilience as learners during a unique moment in time. We wish them all the best and will follow their success as they move into the MYP.