FOSIL and the IB Middle Years Programme Community | Personal Project

[Darryl Toerien Keymaster]

We are currently an International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Programme (MYP) candidate school, which will lead to GCSEs, and have offered the Diploma Programme (DP) alongside A-levels since 2001.

We run an inquiry skills project for students at the start of Year 9, which we will elaborate on, that equips students with the skills that they will need for their independent inquiry at the end of Year 9, which we will also elaborate on.

We are now starting to turn our minds to how this will relate to the MYP Community Project and Personal Project.

[Ruth Participant]

I am working on a couple of workbooks for 2 Year 9 project. The first is the IB Community Project which runs from September to February. This is only the second time it has happened here we are learning fast.

The second is an interdisciplinary project between music and languages looking at all types of music from around the world, from folk to pop via anything else with lyrics.

I am working hard to get teacher input and make two strong, hopefully clearly similar, workbooks that demonstrate the power of FOSIL to our year 9 students.

I will post whatever I produce here and will welcome feedback but if anyone is working on anything similar and would like to share thoughts I’d love more support. I have dug through the resources and will be using what I can.

Thanks,

Ruth

[Lucy Breag Participant]

Hi Ruth – and anyone else who has experience of the MYP Community Project,

Having run some relatively successful off-timetable Community Days for our Year 7 and 8 pupils this year, I am now faced with needing to plan a full-blown MYP Community Project for next year’s Year 9s.  We recently found out that this will probably be in addition to, rather than in lieu of, our Year 9 Individual Project – which we had expected to be bumped into Year 10.  As the Individual Project usually launches in January, I am imagining that our timescale will be similar to the one you were planning for two years ago.  If you have any material or details you can share, I would be very grateful.

[Ruth Participant]

Hi Lucy,

As you may have gathered from my lack of further post I have not progressed those very far. The interdisciplinary project was a casualty of Covid because it was due to happen in camp week  – which was cancelled. The teacher who was the driving force behind it has since left and so the who project has been dropped. I have yet to hear what is happening this year in its place.

The community project did run this year but on a very minimal scale and I have found it hard to get me teeth into it. I did give a session about carrying out primary research and putting their ideas in context but little more.  In our school the community we ask students to engage with is always the rest of the school. They are not asked to reach outside. They are also only given form time (20 mins) a day to work on it and therefore the scale of their work is generally small scale. For example in the past we have had teacher appreciation boxes, poster campaigns to remind students to recycle, revision guides and campaigns to introduce meat free days into the canteen. While I can see an opportunity here I am also weary of imposing a workbook on students unnecessarily. I will give it some thought over the holidays – I am dedicating the break to FOSIl – and let you know where I get to.

Ruth

[Ruth Participant]

As an aside, I am interested to hear that you undertake the Personal Project. We don’t run that, my understanding is that that sits at the end of the 5 year MYP course in place of exams and in prep for the EE. It’s a shame that schools can’t choose because I suspect the Personal Project is better prep for the EE.

[Lucy Breag Participant]

Thanks Ruth, in terms of the Community Project, the work we have done so far has been: helping pupils to consider all of the circles of community they are part of; raising their awareness about problems people in those communities might face; and helping them understand ways in which they might help.  They have also been asked to make pledges for action and these will hopefully be followed up through our tutorial program (similar to your form time, I suspect) as the year progresses. As these Year 8s are those who I need to plan ahead for next year, I feel I need to take them away from the comfort zone of school into the wider world – and this is the bit that worries me the most!  It will be good to bounce ideas off each other as we move forward.

The ‘Personal Project’ we run at the moment is one that pre-dates the school’s involvement with the MYP, and is one I helped to set up many (many) years ago and have been developing ever since.  This is our Year 9 Individual Project, which has its very own thread in the forum, and which may continue to run in very much the same format as now, or may end up being adapted to fit the requirements of the MYP Personal Project should we end up going down that route. We will have to wait and see.

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