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Elmhurst School says IPC has made all the difference

Jackie describes her children’s recent learning with the IPC Active Planet unit. “They’ve built volcanoes and painted them and made them erupt. But in addition, all of a sudden all my children are interested in tectonic plates and they want to find out where the volcanoes are located. They’re just as excited about the geography of volcanoes and earthquakes as they are about the science of them because they are learning about them in a real life context.”

With its international focus, Jackie says the IPC is having a particular impact on the school’s multicultural intake. “The international approach that the IPC uses with every thematic unit is interesting for us all and gives us the chance to look at our learning from our own local context as well as from the context of other countries. It’s helping to make our children see that there’s a massive big world out there. As a result of the IPC, we now believe that international learning is really important for our children, especially our children who have such a diverse background and need to understand their place in the world.” And this approach, along with exciting and embracing activities, has increased participation by parents in the children’s learning and in the schools learning-focused events. “Not only are the children talking more about their learning at home and wanting to do more at home, but the parents are a really positive presence in school,” says Jackie. “For the IPC Young Entrepreneurs unit, for example, the children organised a bake sale and many of our parents baked foods from their home countries to sell at the sale. It’s been a very good thing.”

Jackie says that the IPC has noticeably helped the children to improve their writing and maths skills too. “One particular child in my class is so improved in his literacy as a result of the IPC. Not only is he very engaged with the themes and, as a result, has more to say, he is also able to produce much better quality work because he sees a purpose to his writing.” And when it comes to Maths, Jackie explains that there are many opportunities for the teachers to apply numeracy and data handling skills linked to the IPC theme that they are learning with. She shares two examples: “In the IPC Active Planet unit, the children recorded lava flow and then plotted graphs with their results. And in the Magic Toymaker unit, the younger children tested how far their toys could travel and, as a whole class, recorded the results. Maths has a real life place in many IPC tasks. Now the children can see a point in what they are doing.”

The International Primary Curriculum will be a part of this year’s forthcoming Buckinghamshire Academy for School Leadership (BASL) Conference on March 8th at Beaumont Estate in Old Windsor.