International School Curriculum ProjectISCP

There is a clear evidence from home-school projects that children make better progress when their parents are involved in their education.

-Bell, 1990

Learning is the essential fuel for the leader, a source of high octane energy that keeps up the momentum by continually sparking new understanding, new ideas and new challenges. Bennis and Nanus, 1985

What are the beliefs and values that drive the ISCP?

Mission

The ISCP aims to synthesise the best research and practice from a range of national systems

with the wealth of knowledge and experience in our own international schools to create a

transdiciplinary curriculum which is relevant, challenging and engaging for learners in the

the 3-12 age range.

Internationalism

What is an international school?It is a school which regardless of location, size constitution, strives towards developing an international person.

What is an international person?It is a person with the attributes and dispositions described in the set of students learning outcomes which have been identified.

What do I need to know?

About the Curriculum

It is designed as an interactive whole, eventually to encompass the full range of disciplines.

Its major emphasis is on inquiry as a vehicle for learning.

It views curriculum as three interactive elements: the written, taught, and learned curriculum.

It´s an excellent preparation, but not a prerequisite, for the IB Middle Years´Programme.

What is the ISCP´S approach to learning?

What, then does it mean to be an educated person?

It means respecting the miracle of life, being empowered in the use of language, and responding sensitively to the aesthetic. Being truly educated means putting learning in historicasl perspective, understanding groups and institutions, having reverence for the natural world, and affirming the dignity of work. And, above all, being an educated person means being guided by values and beliefs and connecting the lessons of the classroom to the realities of life. Boyer 1981

The ISCP comprises three components:

1. What do we want to learn?The written curriculum

The identification of student learning outcomes within a curriculum framework.Essential elements: concepts, knowledge, skills, attitudes, action

2. How best will we learn?The taught curriculum

The theory and application of good classroom practice.

What is our purpose?What resources will we use?What do we want to learn?How will we know what we have learned?To what extent did we achieve our purpose?

How will we know what we have learned?The learned curriculum

The theory and application of effective assessment.

The ISCP is commited to inquiry as the preferred approach to teaching and learning. It further believes:

The approaches to learning it is advocating are relevant outside the classroom and will have an impact on the culture of the school.

Without an understanding of this impact the curriculum cannot achieve its potential.

Inquiry, as a means of learning, changing and improving is as valid for the school as a whole as it is for a group of students in the classroom.

How can I make sure it is happening?

Make sure the planers are used. Work with the teachers.Develp the library/media centre collection around units of inquiry.Visit classrooms to see inquiry in action.Evaluate what you value.The school´s beliefs and values can e well expressed through a set of student learning outcomes which serve to drive the curriculum.

ISCP Teacher´s Job Description

The teachers is accountable for:

Planning collaboratively for student learning.

Involving students in planning for their own

learning and assessment.

Planning which build upon students´prior knowledge and experience.

Planning significant units of inquiry, to be explored in depth

Addressing assessment issues

Planning emphising connections in all areas

Planning which accommodates a range of ability levels