IB Asia Pacific Newsletter

Quarter Three, 2008

Middle Years Programme

The IB Asia Pacific MYP Team

There have been some staff changes in our office over the last few months.  Patrick Ritter, the former MYP Regional Manager, has taken up a position as Head of the Beacon School in Manila. Curtis Beaverford has moved into his position and Ashish Trivedi has joined us as MYP Associate Regional Manager.  

The programme manager position has three main focus areas - school authorization and evaluation, supervision of regional MYP professional development activities and support for programme implementation in interested, candidate and IB World Schools in this region.

From Principles into Practice

The long awaited replacement to the Implementation Guide and the AOI Guide was published in early August.  “From Principles into Practice” is an exciting document for the programme as it provides a clear explanation of MYP philosophy and practices, and makes clear connections to the Programme Standards and Practices.

This guide is meant to be read by all MYP teachers and programme coordinators as it goes through practices common to all subject areas.  “From Principles into Practice” will be used as the main text resource for workshops. 

New Coordinator’s Handbook

Last year, the decision was made that the coordinator’s handbook for 2008/2009 would be produced in an HTML format only, for the following reasons:

• HTML format offers better usability: It provides links to other sections within the handbook  as well as links to other relevant documents and forms.  Clicking on email addresses will start a new email, and clicking on web addresses opens the relevant page. The documents and forms are in PDF format for ease of printing or saving.

• A printer-friendly version can be produced by clicking on the printer icon in the header bar of every HTML page. This means you can still print out the handbook or save it. Instructions for printing/saving the handbook are as follows:

•  (If using Firefox) Select File>Save Page As and then change Save As Type to Web Page, HTML only
• (If using Internet Explorer) Select Page>Save As and then change Save As Type to Web Page, HTML only (*.htm, *.html)

You can then open the resulting file in your word processor and save it in the appropriate format, for example, .doc (Word) or .odt (Open Office).

Update on the Personal Project Guide Review

The second guide review meeting took place from 14 to 17 July 2008 in Cardiff.  Two practitioners from our region attended the meeting (Werner Paetzold, Bali International School and Chris Rebbeck, Blackwood High School, Australia).  Over the next few months, they will be seeking feedback on proposed changes.  The report on the meeting will be published on the OCC in the coming months.

Regional Networks

Some networks in our region are very active and they organize fantastic activities. Unfortunately at the moment, most of this goes on in isolation. This section of the newsletter will be devoted to sharing news from various networks. For a start, we have news from the networks in Western Australia, Singapore and China.

The Western Australian IB Coordinators Network

The Western Australian IB Coordinators Network is now in its second year. Based on the New South Wales model, IB coordinators meet quarterly to discuss issues relevant to the three programs. The network seeks to provide a supportive role for all authorised, candidate and interested schools in Western Australia. An IB teachers’ contact matrix is currently being developed to provide all IB teachers in Western Australia with the opportunity to share resources, ideas and approaches to delivering the IB programmes offered in their school. 12 schools across the three programmes are now part of the network.

- Ben Beaton, MYP Coordinator Scotch College

The Singapura MYP Coordinator’s Network

The Singapura MYP Coordinator’s Network meets at least twice a year to share ideas, organise events, trouble shoot common difficulties and work with the IB in order to continue to richly implement the MYP within our schools in Singapore.  The German European School Singapore, Overseas Family School, ISS International School Singapore and the Australian International School Singapore are members of this network.  The network is open to candidate schools as well as IB World Schools.

The informality of the network is a deliberate and valued feature.  After the last IB Asia Pacific Conference in Singapore in 2007, we were invited to consider formalising our network and adopting a constitution.  The Singapura MYP Coordinators Network decided against such a move.   The group does, however, use agendas and publish minutes.  Recently the group has begun to use Google Documents as a means to publish minutes and collect information for Job Alike meetings.

One of the most useful aspects of this network is that the coordinators know and trust each other.  This allows us to readily and regularly communicate on an informal basis, mostly by email between meetings.  We have built up appropriate links among the schools supporting one another.  For example, Introductory Workshops in one school will also be opened to teachers from other schools.

The Singapura MYP Network has attempted to facilitate the development of subject based networks of teachers from the schools in Singapore using the annual MYP Job Alike meeting as a starting point.  The subject networks have not as yet become established and they will only take off when teachers from the various schools see the worth of such connections.  

Many of the MYP Coordinators in Singapore in the last few months have moved on to schools in other countries, from Amsterdam to Taipei.  Not only is the network robust enough to support new members and continue with its work, it will also benefit from occasional contact with the members of the group who have left.

-  Mrs Angela Gravina, Convenor Singapura MYP Network

MYP IBSCM North group

This network (IB Schools in China and Mongolia) is made up of Beijing City International School, Western Academy of Beijing, Beijing BISS International School, International School of Tianjin, Beijing No. 55 High School, Beijing World Youth Academy, Tianjin Experimental High School, and International School of Ulaanbaatar.

The final meeting of the 2007/2008 year was held on 29 May.  We scheduled it as a job-alike session in order to go beyond just planning and organizing subject specific job-alike sessions, but also to give ourselves time to share practices, thoughts and discuss MYP matters.  MYP coordinators have much to share – see our agenda:

• Rotating the MYP IBSCM North liaison role
• AOI (Areas of Interaction) Festival
• Reviewing the Job-alikes (do we continue the sessions per subject focus, or would it be productive to take generic cross subject focuses, for example – assessment?)
• Principles into Practice guide and the new Year 1 - 3 objectives
• Unit planners
• AOI implementation
• C&S (Community & Service) projects
• Managing PP, moderation process
• School documentation / mapping
• Whole school Language policy
• Role of coordinators

Through the year we offered five subject specific job-alike sessions, the AOI Festival, and we saw an increasing cohesion between the MYP coordinators of the MYP IBSCM North group.  The liaison role is now moving from Beijing City International School – Lotty Cole - to the International School of Tianjin – Barbara Wrightson.

 - Lotty Cole, MYP coordinator, Beijing City International School

Please see Focus on Schools section for schools update.

Curtis Beaverford, MYP Regional Manager

Ashish Trivedi, MYP Associate Regional Manager

Frances Chia, Personal Assistant

Email: ibapmyp@ibo.org