MYP curriculum

The International Baccalaureate® (IB) Middle Years Programme (MYP) curriculum comprises eight subject groups.

Learn about the MYP subject groups and read their subject briefs in the links below.

The MYP requires at least 50 hours of teaching time for each subject group in each year of the programme. In years 4 and 5, students have the option to take courses from six of the eight subject groups within certain limits, to provide greater flexibility in meeting local requirements and individual student learning needs.

Each year, students in the MYP also engage in at least one collaboratively planned interdisciplinary unit that involves at least two subject groups.

MYP students also complete a long-term project, where they decide what they want to learn about, identify what they already know, discovering what they will need to know to complete the project, and create a proposal or criteria for completing it.

Our approach to teaching and learning

The MYP aims to help students develop their personal understanding, their emerging sense of self and responsibility in their community.

Teaching and learning in the MYP is underpinned by the following concepts:

Teaching and learning in context

Students learn best when their learning experiences have context and are connected to their lives and their experience of the world that they have experienced.

Using global contexts, MYP students develop an understanding of their common humanity and shared guardianship of the planet through developmentally appropriate explorations of:

identities and relationships
personal and cultural expression
orientations in space and time
scientific and technical innovation
fairness and development
globalization and sustainability.

Conceptual understanding

Concepts are big ideas that have relevance within specific disciplines and across subject areas. MYP students use concepts as a vehicle to inquire into issues and ideas of personal, local and global significance and examine knowledge holistically. The MYP prescribes sixteen key interdisciplinary concepts along with related concepts for each discipline.

Approaches to learning

A unifying thread throughout all MYP subject groups, approaches to learning (ATL) provide the foundation for independent learning and encourage the application of their knowledge and skills in unfamiliar contexts. Developing and applying these social, thinking, research, communication and self management skills helps students learn how to learn.

Service as action, through community service

Action and service have always been shared values of the IB community.

Students take action when they apply what they are learning in the classroom and beyond. IB learners strive to be caring members of the community who demonstrate a commitment to service—making a positive difference to the lives of others and to the environment.

Service as action is an integral part of the programme, especially in the MYP community project.

Inclusion and learning diversity in MYP

As part of the MYP curriculum, schools address differentiation within the written, taught and assessed curriculum.

This is demonstrated in the unit planner and in the teaching environment, both of which are reviewed during programme authorization and evaluation.

The MYP allows schools to continue to meet state, provincial or national legal requirements for students with access needs. Schools must develop an inclusion/special educational needs (SEN) policy that explains assessment access arrangements, classroom accommodations and curriculum modification that meet individual student learning needs.

STEM education in the MYP

The MYP curriculum focuses on STEM as an important perspective from which to consider integrated teaching and learning in concepts and skills related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Read more about STEM education in the MYP.