International Baccalaureate

The International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme (IB MYP), for students aged 11 to 16, provides a framework of academic challenge that encourages students to embrace and understand the connections between traditional subjects and the real world and become critical and reflective thinkers. IB MYP is a five-year program that provides a framework of academic challenge and life skills appropriate to this stage of adolescence.

Summerour and Pinckneyville Middle Schools offer the Middle Years Programme for every 6th-8th grader. The Middle Years Program serves as excellent preparation for those students who wish to continue in the Diploma Programme. Those students move on to complete the MYP five-year program in the 9th and 10th-grade year at Norcross High School. The Norcross cluster was the first cluster in Gwinnett County to implement the IB program, though we are no longer the only cluster running the program.

Visit www.ibo.org for more information about the IB programs.

Design Cycle

The Design Cycle is a process put forth by the IBO (International Baccalaureate Organization) to assist students and teachers in the product or solution process. It is designed to take the student through the entire process while fully understanding each component of the cycle. It is multi-directional and made to give the student the chance to change and refine a product or solution until it is a demonstration of the student’s greatest abilities.

What makes the design cycle different from other design plans is documentation. Students need to learn how to break down the process and document each phase and step they are taking. Most often, this is an internal action. However, the goal of the design cycle is for the student to record this process, giving the audience a deeper understanding of the student’s thinking.

IB Service Hours

Action and Service

Action is learning by doing and experiencing, and is a key component to all IB programmes. Through responsible action, tightly connected with sustained inquiry and critical reflection, young people and adults can develop the kinds of attributes described by the learner profile that are essential for success in future academic pursuits and life beyond the classroom. Service, as a subset or particular kind of action, has always been a shared value of the IB community. IB learners strive to be caring members of the community who demonstrate a personal commitment to service, and act to make a positive difference to the lives of others and to the environment.

Service as action: With appropriate guidance and support, MYP students should, through their engagement with service as one of the significant forms of action, meet the learning outcomes to develop the skills and attributes of an IB learner. IB World Schools value service with others as an important way to engage in principled action across a range of overlapping local and global communities.

Learner Profile

IB Learner Profiles are the International Baccalaureate's focus on getting students to understand how they learn. The IB Learner Profiles are as follows:

Inquirers

IB Learners develop their natural curiosity. They acquire the skills necessary to conduct inquiry and research and show independence in learning. They actively enjoy learning, and this love of learning will be sustained throughout their lives.

Knowledgeable

IB Learners explore concepts, ideas, and issues that have local and global significance. In so doing, they acquire in-depth knowledge and develop understanding across a broad and balanced range of disciplines.

Thinkers

They exercise initiative in applying thinking skills critically and creatively to recognize and approach complex problems, and make reasoned, ethical decisions.

Communicators

They understand and express ideas and information confidently and creatively in more than one language and in a variety of modes of communication. They work effectively and willingly in collaboration with others.

Principled

They act with integrity and honesty, with a strong sense of fairness, justice, and respect for the dignity of the individual, groups, and communities. They take responsibility for their own actions and the consequences that accompany them.

Open-Minded

They understand and appreciate their own cultures and personal histories and are open to the perspectives, values, and traditions of other individuals and communities. They are accustomed to seeking and evaluating a range of points of view and are willing to grow from the experience.

Caring

They show empathy, compassion, and respect towards the needs and feelings of others. They have a personal commitment to service, and they act to make a positive difference to the lives of others and to the environment.

Risk-Takers

They approach unfamiliar situations and uncertainty with courage and forethought. They have the independence of spirit to explore new roles, ideas, and strategies. They are brave and articulate in defending of their beliefs.

Balanced

They understand the importance of intellectual, physical, and emotional balance to achieve personal well-being for themselves and for others.

Reflective

They give thoughtful consideration to their own learning and experience. They are able to assess and understand their strengths and limitations in order to support their learning and personal development.

MYP Subjects

Arts

In the Middle Years Programme (MYP), students develop through creating, performing and presenting arts in ways that engage and convey feelings, experiences and ideas. It is through this practice that students acquire new skills and master those skills developed in prior learning. Students have opportunities to function as artists, as well as learners of the arts.

Language Acquisition

The study of additional languages in the Middle Years Programme (MYP) provides students with the opportunity to develop insights into the features, processes and craft of language and the concept of culture, and to realize that there are diverse ways of living, viewing and behaving in the world.

Physical & Health Education

In the Middle Years Programme (MYP), physical and health education empowers students to understand and appreciate the value of being physically active and to develop the motivation for making healthy life choices. Physical and health education focuses on both learning about and learning through physical activity.

Design

As part of the Middle Years Programme (MYP), design challenges all students to apply practical and creative thinking skills to solve design problems, explore the role of design in both historical and contemporary contexts and consider their responsibilities when making design decisions and taking action.

Mathematics

In the Middle Years Programme (MYP), mathematics promotes both inquiry and application, helping students to develop problem solving techniques that transcend the discipline and that are useful in the world beyond school. The mathematics framework encompasses number, algebra, geometry and trigonometry, statistics and probability. Students in the MYP learn how to represent information, to explore and model situations, and to find solutions to familiar and unfamiliar problems.

Sciences

The Middle Years Programme (MYP) sciences framework encourages students to investigate issues through research, observation and experimentation, working independently and collaboratively. As they investigate real examples of science application, students will discover the tensions and dependencies between science and morality, ethics, culture, economics, politics, and the environment.

Language & Literature

Middle Years Programme (MYP) language and literature courses develop skills in six areas of listening, speaking, reading, writing, viewing, and presenting.

Individuals & Societies

In the Middle Year Programme (MYP) students collect, describe and analyze data used in studies of societies, test hypotheses, and learn how to interpret complex information, including original source material with a focus on real-world examples, research and analysis.

OUR IB Coordinator

Rhonda Perry

Summerour Mission

Summerour Middle School, in keeping with principles of the International Baccalaureate Organization, is committed to developing motivated learners who are able to apply cross-curricular, intercultural knowledge and skills to life in both the local and global communities.

Summerour Vision

Summerour Middle School will ignite academic excellence and character building by creating opportunities for all students to be successful in a multicultural world.

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