IB Middle Years

The International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme (MYP), is an educational program for students between the ages of 11 to 16 around the world as part of the International Baccalaureate (IB) continuum. MYP is intended to prepare students for the two-year IB Diploma Programme (IBDP).

In the MYP, students are required to receive instruction in all 8 subject group; Language Acquisition, Language and Literature, Individuals and Societies, Sciences, Mathematics, Arts, Physical and Health Education, and Design. Typically, a student must receive at least 50 hours of instruction in all 8 subject groups every year. However, with permission from the IB, schools can acquire curriculum flexibility to only require 6 of the 8 subject areas during the final two years of the MYP. The full program lasts 5 years although shorter programs, lasting two, three, or four years, can be adopted with permission from the IB. There are many requirements that must be fulfilled in order for a school to offer MYP, such as receiving authorization from the IB, having sufficient funding, and finding teachers that are willing and able to commit to the additional demands (e.g., completing ongoing IB teacher trainings and complying with the structured curriculum).

The program is based on six Global contexts. Global contexts are considered a key feature of the MYP. They are not generally taught as separate courses, but rather as themes that are reflected in all subjects through unit questions.

The community and service area requires students to study and perform community studies and service throughout the program.

In addition to the eight subject groups, in MYP 5, students complete a long-term project (the personal project) on a topic of their choice, with teacher supervision (this is also graded with its own separate criteria). Students in MYP 3-4 complete the community project.

MYP documentation is available in English, French, Spanish, Russian and Chinese.

The subjects taught in the MYP are divided into eight subject groups.

Schools can choose the subjects they teach within each subject group and how many. However, each subject group must receive a minimum of 50 hours of curriculum time each academic year. In years 4 and 5, schools can request to only require students to receive 50-hours of instruction in six of the eight subject groups. A student could take another "Language and Literature" course if they have sufficient proficiency in both (In MYP4&5 this could replace the Language Acquisition course). Schools are given much flexibility to allow them to introduce subjects which they consider important, and to organize their own student assessment and reporting procedures. However, the MYP gives clear criteria for each subject group. The criteria get progressively harder with the first year of MYP using the MYP1 criteria, then the second and third year using the MYP3 criteria and finally the last two years using the MYP5 criteria. Each year, MYP students participate in one interdisciplinary that combines at least two of the subject groups; there is a separate criterion for interdisciplinary learning.

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