IB Middle Years Program

CIC was the first school in Venezuela to implement the IB Middle Years Program for Grades 6-10, a rigorous, world-renowned curriculum, which promotes very high academic standards and responsible citizenship in an increasingly global society. The descriptions on this page are excerpted from publications by the International Baccalaureate Organization.

The IBO’s Middle Years program (MYP) provides a framework of academic challenge and life skills for students aged 11-16 years. The five-year program offers an educational approach that embraces yet transcends traditional school subjects. It serves as excellent preparation for the Diploma program.

The framework is flexible enough to allow a school to include other subjects not determined by the IBO but which might be required by local authorities. After consultation with the IBO, and provided certain conditions are met, schools enjoy much flexibility in terms of language of instruction and languages taught. The MYP, like the other two programs of the International Baccalaureate Organization, is based on the premise that education can foster understanding among young people around the world. Intercultural awareness is central to the program, to enable future generations to live more peacefully and productively than we do today.

Students at this stage—early puberty to mid-adolescence—are in a particularly critical phase of personal and intellectual development. This is a time of uncertainty, sensitivity, resistance and questioning. The IBMYP provides them with discipline, skills and challenging standards, but also with creativity and flexibility. The IBO builds its program around these considerations but it is also concerned that students develop a personal value system by which to guide their own lives, as thoughtful members of local communities and the larger world.

The MYP Curriculum

The MYP provides a thorough study of various disciplines. It also accentuates the interrelatedness of them, acknowledging the role of the subject disciplines and transdisciplinary study. At the same time, the IBO recognizes the importance of respecting the independence and integrity of each discipline.

Areas of Interaction

Five perspectives known as the areas of interaction are at the core of the MYP program. These are: approaches to learning; community and service, health and social education, environment, and homo faber (man as maker). These pervade and recur throughout the five years of the MYP, through the eight subject groups, but also through interdisciplinary teaching and projects, whole school activities and the MYP personal project. The areas of interaction are not directly assessed nor awarded individual grades, since they are themes rather than subjects. They are, however, indirectly assessed through the personal project.

Personal Project

This is an independent piece of work that is intended to be the culmination of the student’s involvement with the five areas. It may be an essay, an artistic production or other form of expression, with the topic chosen in consultation with teachers.

Academic Disciplines: the Subject Groups

The emphasis is on a conceptual framework with objectives that are oriented towards skills and the learning process. The areas of interaction are addressed within these disciplines.

Language A
The student’s best language, usually the school’s language of instruction.

Language B
A modern modern languages learned at school.

Humanities
History and geography.

Sciences
Biology, chemistry, physics.

Mathematics
Course including the five branches of mathematics: number, algebra, geometry and trigonometry, probability and statistics, and discrete mathematics.

Arts
Visual arts and performing arts.

Physical Education
Course, including health and fitness, individual and team sports.

Technology
Computer,information and communication technologies.