International Primary Curriculum (IPC)

The IPC inspires a love for learning in children by helping students relate what they learn (in the classroom) to their life at home and to the broader society and world. It encourages students to think out of the box, to share their ideas and learn how to collaborate with others.

By utilising a student-led learning approach that is different from traditional teacher-led knowledge-based systems, the IPC allows teachers to base the content of their lessons after a careful evaluation of existing student knowledge and what they desire to learn. Therefore, it is entirely possible that classes across the same level can have different learning activities whilst still ensuring that key development and learning goals are met. The flexibility of the IPC gives teachers the ability to add on learning experiences and other ideas while ensuring that national curriculum requirements are met.

This student-led approach to learning helps ensure that students take ownership and are enthusiastic about their learning. The end goal for our students is for them to develop a love for learning that will serve them well for the rest of their life.

Each IPC subject has specific subject goals which cover the knowledge, understanding and skills that children need to have.

Personal goals reflect the individual qualities that children need to have to succeed in the modern world. The 8 IPC personal goals include adaptability, cooperation, respect, thoughtfulness, communication, morality, enquiry and resilience. These personal goals are built into learning tasks for each subject so that students get the opportunity to practice and learn these personal goals.

International learning goals are a part of each IPC theme so that students learn to develop a sophisticated intercultural, international and national perspective and understand their place in the world.

By learning to see themselves as global citizens of the world, students also learn to embrace diversity and acceptance of people from different cultures and backgrounds.

IPC’s learning units are designed to appeal to the interests of children so that they are enthusiastic about learning about the world. Examples of themes including Who Am I?, Active Planet, Buildings, Young Entrepreneurs and Mission to Mars.

The IPC helps to interlink subjects for students so that they can see the broader picture of what they are learning about, and talk about the same topic from different perspectives.

Each topic has entry points to hook students into being interested to learn more about the topic. Knowledge harvests enable students to share what they already know about the topic so teachers can adapt, while learning tasks encourage independent and group learning. At the end of each topic, exit points allow students to consolidate their learning points and present them. This also provides parents with the opportunity to see what their children have learned and their new perspectives on the topic.

The IPC has 3 milepost for assessment which take place after 5-7 years of age, 7-9 years of age and 9-11 years of age. Assessment stages include “beginning”, “developing”, and “mastering”, moving students away from the unnecessary comparison of finding out who’s the best.

Teachers take the approach of identifying the learning stage of each skill in each stage for each student and offering practical activities to help children improve their learning. Students also have success criteria that they can understand easily. This helps them take an active role in assessing how well they are learning.

Invictus complements this assessment with our own formal knowledge tests, observation skills, written and project work and effort assessment against the school’s matrix so that parents can get written reports on their child’s progress. We also have parent-teacher conferences twice a year to discuss progress and targets for students.