Post 2 of Round 2 of #28daysofwriting: MYP, where do I go from here?

I teach at an IB World School.  By that I mean that we have taken on board the three IB programmes: the Primary Years Programme (PYP), the Middle Years Programme (MYP) and the Diploma Programme (DP).  Both the PYP and DP seem to work well for our students and teachers but the MYP is an awkward fit.

Many of us chose to teach MYP because, in part, we preferred a curriculum that did not require our students to take externally set exams at age 16.  MYP was flexible in that it allowed us to design our own units.  We have interim assessment criteria for various stages of the 5 year programme and end of programme assessment criteria.  We send student work off for moderation in year 5 and so our marking is externally moderated.  And finally all final year students in MYP complete a personal project on a topic of their choice.

All is changing now and there are murmurings of discontent!  Exams are on the horizon.  What's more, they are to be electronic.  At a school where we have nothing but problems with IT, one can't help but see catastrophe ahead.  Now the MYP changes are affecting what and how we teach.

The first impact I have seen is on a research assignment our grade 9s are undertaking at the moment. The last time we taught this unit on World War 1, students were able to work in groups, and complete a bulletin board display to convey to others in the school what they had learned by pursuing a particular research question.  We also had the opportunity to visit the Imperial War Museum exhibit on WW1. Unfortunately, this time round there will be no group presentation and no visit to the museum.  Let's just get through the research, write the essay and move on!  We have lost the luxury of time because now we are not just going to teach history and geography but also add economics and all in a trimester one year course.

I am being a bit cynical and perhaps I should just wait and see how this all works out before making a judgement.  However, I just feel, drawing close to the end of my career in teaching, that I would like to work somewhere... well, I'm not sure what I'm looking for though I do have a vague idea. I will have to consider that in future blogs.