From our Deputy Head Prep Academics, Shannon O’Dwyer:

The King’s School is an IB World School offering the Primary Years Programme (PYP) at The Preparatory School and Tudor House.

The School’s decision to offer the PYP is based on a vast body of research into best practice teaching and learning over the last 20 years.

We believe that the delivery of the PYP at The King’s School offers challenging, relevant and exciting learning experiences every day. We are dedicated to developing in each boy a love of learning and a set of skills that endure beyond his primary school years.

Here are 5 reasons the PYP is ideal for King’s boys:

1) The PYP encourages students to inquire

At the Prep School, we harness your son’s natural curiosity about the world around him. We channel his energy and honour his questions to ensure that ‘school learning’ is always connected and relevant to his life. Our teachers are masterful at connecting the curriculum with each boy’s passions. Recently, Year 4 students asked questions about how rocks are formed, and their teachers responded with a series of hands-on experiments about plate tectonics, geological landforms and erosion.

2) The PYP explores real-world issues

At the Prep School, your son doesn’t learn history, geography or science from textbooks, but from real world issues. In Year 5, the boys are learning about communities this term. To do so, they will work with the Headmaster on the Prep School Master Plan; they will work with community engagement experts to plan local parks; they will investigate service provisions to Norfolk Island as a complex, newsworthy issue. In each inquiry, your son is grappling with complexity and applying his learning to real world situations.

3) PYP students are confident communicators

Every boy is taught to speak in front of an audience. He will participate in public speaking and poetry recitation events annually. On a daily basis, he will be invited to articulate questions, explain ideas, justify his thoughts and share his opinions. His voice will be honoured and his language development is a high priority. Prep teachers favourite questions are: “What makes you say that?” and “How do you know?” Strong communication skills are the key to success in all academic subjects, and in all facets of life.

4) PYP students learn how to learn

Boys are encouraged to take charge of their own learning. They are taught to set goals and reflect on successes, errors and areas for improvement. They are taught to assess their own work. They work in partnership with the teacher to conference about their next steps in learning. In each case, we are equipping your son with the independence, resilience and insight to succeed in any field, because he knows how to learn.

5) PYP students are caring citizens

It’s not enough to achieve academic excellence. It is our mission to develop young men of good character who seek to serve others. As such, the PYP is an outward-looking curriculum that invites our boys to solve problems, propose solutions and take action for a better world. With the Learner Profile as the attributes for which we strive, the boys learn to be caring, principled, responsible, open-minded and knowledgeable. Last year, boys in Year 4 built possum boxes for endangered wildlife whose habitats had been destroyed by fire; Year 3 students developed a project to improve health outcomes in Papua New Guinea; Year 6 worked with refugees to investigate solutions to humanitarian crises. King’s boys have big hearts and our teaching is designed to give them the knowledge, skills and wisdom to turn empathy into action.

Ms Shannon O’Dwyer, Deputy Head – Academics The King’s School, Preparatory School