Middle Years Programme

Osaka YMCA
International School

OYIS was authorized as a Middle Years Programme school in June 2021.

At OYIS our goal is to care for, educate, and develop independent, globally-minded students.

Beginning in grade 7 and finishing at the end of grade 10, the Middle Years Programme (MYP) is a holistic and rigorous 4-year course that encourages students to make connections between their studies and the real world.

Through our inquiry-based instruction, we aim to foster collaborative, balanced, and reflective lifelong learners who engage meaningfully in their communities.

What is Teaching and Learning through Inquiry?

The Middle Years Programme (MYP) is concept-based teaching and learning allowing students to organize their knowledge into broad categorizing concepts. Students can experience the transfer of ideas across disciplines. In a concept-driven curriculum, big ideas such as change, logic, and perspective are taught across disciplines encouraging the transfer of knowledge.

The classroom is student-centered rather than teacher-centered; the teacher is a facilitator of learning. Students are active learners engaged in constructing their own learning through posing research questions. They are challenged by problem-based learning with connections to real-world problems.

MYP Approaches to Learning (AtLs) equip students with the research, collaboration, thinking, and communication skills to be able to confidently and independently complete the challenging Diploma Programme (DP) in grades 11-12. The AtLs ensure that a student’s socio-emotional development is measured and mapped as part of curriculum development and highlights a strong emphasis on student wellbeing.

Academic Development

Having completed the IB Primary Years Programme (PYP), students at OYIS enter the IB Middle Years Programme (MYP), which prepares them for the IB Diploma Programme. The MYP is offered from Grade 7 through to Grade 10 (students aged 12 to 16).

The MYP aims to help students develop their personal understanding, their emerging sense of self, and responsibility to their community. MYP teachers organize the curriculum with appropriate attention to:

Teaching and learning in context. Using global contexts, MYP students explore human identity, global challenges, and what it means to be internationally minded.
Conceptual understanding. Students use concepts as a vehicle to inquire into issues and ideas of personal, local, and global significance and examine knowledge holistically.
Approaches to learning. Provides students with the foundation for independent learning and encourages the application of knowledge and skills in unfamiliar contexts.
Service as action. Learning by doing. Students learn to be caring members of the community —making a positive difference to the lives of others and to the environment.

Why the MYP?

Research shows that students participating in the MYP:

Build confidence in managing their own learning
Learn by doing, connecting the classroom to the larger World
Outperform non-IB students in critical academic skills
Consistently have greater success in IB Diploma Programme examinations
Thrive in positive school cultures where they are engaged and motivated to excel
Develop an understanding of global challenges and a commitment to act as responsible citizens.

Music & Visual Arts

Music
In the MYP music program students explore various disciplines and aspects of music and the arts in general. Students learn how to compose, analyze, perform, record, and present music in a variety of ways.

Three main focal points of the program are:

creative process
communication
delivery

These three points are integrated to address the use of relevant ATL skills that identify Concepts and Global Contexts and give students opportunities to make connections with global issues through studying a variety of local cultures.

The main aims of the program are:

to give students ample opportunities to experience a real-life situation as professional musicians
to meet the main MYP Performing Arts Program’s goals
to prepare students to continue studying music in the future

Students’ assessment is based on four criteria: Knowing and Understanding, Developing Skills, Thinking Creatively, and Responding. Students will meet these criteria through concept-based experiences and real-life disciplinary projects such as performances before the live audience, recording, composition, and research presentations. Students would need to demonstrate the relevant disciplinary skills, knowledge, and critical thinking as well as the ability to reflect on their own and others’ works.

Further information can be the IB’s MYP Arts Website.

Visual arts:
The Visual Arts program at OYIS invites learners to develop their artistic skills, engage in creative inquiries, and most importantly, discover and express themselves as artists. Students in Grades 9 and 10 can elect to study visual arts for the entire year, while students in Grades 7 and 8 will split their year between Visual Arts and Music. We use artistic mediums such as mural painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking, and weaving to connect with our inquiries. Students also have direct input into the art mediums we explore.

Art has a strong concept-based approach. This will allow students to connect and apply artistic knowledge, and identify and develop the art specific skills they need in order to create and share their art. Emphasis is placed on building communication, research, and thinking skills during this course when students view and present artwork, collect information about art and artists in different genres, and analyze or reflect on the choices, ideas, and processes of themselves and other artists.

In visual arts, student assessment is carried out in alignment with four criteria: knowing and understanding, developing skills, thinking creatively, and responding to art. Over the year, students have opportunities to share what they know through the artistic responses that they produce, and the process journals- where research, analysis, reflections, and idea development are all noted. Our aim is for students to curate and host at least one major exhibition of their art in the school year. Of course, opportunities to share and discuss their completed artwork will happen regularly during the year.

Osaka YMCA
International School

Osaka YMCA
International School