The IB Primary Years Programme (PYP) is the International Baccalaureate’s curriculum framework for children aged three to twelve. In the early years it organises learning around play-based inquiry within six transdisciplinary themes, develops the attributes of the IB learner profile, and emphasises learner agency, meaning children having voice, choice and ownership in their learning. It is a framework rather than a fixed syllabus, so schools write their own programme of inquiry within IB requirements.
For early-years teachers, the PYP raises practical questions: what a unit of inquiry looks like with three-year-olds, how play and inquiry fit together, how the framework relates to national requirements, and what becoming an IB World School actually involves. This article addresses each, from the point of view of practitioners rather than marketing.
Origins and place in the IB continuum
The International Baccalaureate began in Geneva in 1968 with the Diploma Programme for students aged sixteen to nineteen. The Middle Years Programme followed in 1994, and the Primary Years Programme was introduced in 1997, building on work by a group of international schools that had been developing a shared primary curriculum. The Career-related Programme was added later. Together these form what the IB calls a continuum of international education.
From the beginning the PYP covered children from age three, so early years have always been part of the framework, but the programme was revised substantially in 2018 under the title PYP: from principles into practice. The revision gave more explicit attention to the early years, placing play at the centre of early learning and emphasising agency for learners of all ages.
The PYP is used by schools in many countries, both international schools and national schools. In each case it sits alongside the school’s legal obligations; the IB does not replace national curricula but expects schools to integrate them into the programme of inquiry.
The six transdisciplinary themes
Units of inquiry in the PYP are organised under six themes that cut across subject boundaries. They are intended to address questions of global significance that matter to children at any age.
- Who we are: the nature of the self, beliefs and values, physical and emotional health, relationships and what it means to be human.
- Where we are in place and time: orientation in place and time, personal histories, homes and journeys, and connections between individuals and civilisations.
- How we express ourselves: how we discover and express ideas, feelings, culture and values through the arts and other forms.
- How the world works: the natural world and its laws, the physical and biological world, and how people use scientific understanding.
- How we organise ourselves: human-made systems and communities, the structure and function of organisations and economic activity.
- Sharing the planet: rights and responsibilities in sharing finite resources with other people and living things, communities and their relationships.
Older PYP students typically work through a unit under each of the six themes every year. Younger children work on fewer units, and the IB allows more flexibility for children aged three to five, recognising that sustained play and relationships are the main vehicles for learning at that age. Each school’s programme of inquiry shows how units are distributed across ages and themes.
What a unit of inquiry looks like with young children
A unit of inquiry is built around a central idea, a concept-driven statement that children explore over several weeks. With four-year-olds under How the world works, a central idea might be that living things change as they grow. Teachers then identify lines of inquiry, such as how plants change, what living things need to grow, and how we can care for growing things, and key concepts to emphasise.
The PYP names seven key concepts: form, function, causation, change, connection, perspective and responsibility. In the early years these become simple questions that teachers ask and model: what is it like, how does it work, why did that happen, how is it changing, how is it connected to other things, what do others think, and what can we do? Children are not expected to use the terms, but over time the questions shape how they think.
In the classroom, the unit looks like rich play and investigation rather than lessons. Children plant seeds and check them daily, measure seedlings with blocks, draw them, take care of a class pet, visit the school garden, look at photos of themselves as babies, and talk with family members about how they have grown. Teachers provoke with questions and materials, record children’s theories, and adjust the direction based on what children notice. The unit ends not with a test but with children sharing what they have discovered, and often with an action they choose, such as caring for the school garden.
Play and inquiry: how they fit together
A recurring tension in early-years PYP practice is the relationship between play and inquiry. In some schools, units of inquiry were historically planned as teacher-led sequences of activities, with play pushed into the corners of the day. The 2018 enhancement addressed this directly by describing play as a primary vehicle for inquiry in the early years. Children’s self-directed play is seen as a way of exploring ideas, testing theories and making sense of experience.
In practice, strong early-years PYP classrooms look similar to good Reggio-inspired or play-based classrooms. Learning spaces are rich and open-ended, there are long periods of child-initiated play, adults observe and interact to extend thinking, and documentation makes learning visible. The difference is the framework around it: the central idea, the transdisciplinary theme and the key concepts give the inquiry a shape that teachers use to plan and reflect.
The risk is that the framework becomes a weight. If teachers feel they must link every block tower to the central idea, play becomes contrived. Experienced PYP early-years teachers tend to hold the unit lightly, offering provocations related to it while accepting that much of children’s play will go elsewhere and is valuable anyway.
Planning and reflecting as a team
PYP units are planned collaboratively. Early-years teachers, specialist teachers and often the PYP coordinator meet before a unit begins to agree the central idea, lines of inquiry, key concepts and possible learning experiences. They meet again during the unit to review documentation and adjust, and after it ends to reflect on what children learned and what should change next time. These reflections are recorded and inform the following year’s planning.
For teams used to planning alone, this rhythm takes adjustment. Its value lies in shared understanding: when the music teacher, the Vietnamese class teacher and the English-speaking teacher all know the central idea and the children’s current theories, each can extend the inquiry from a different direction. A song about seeds, a story read in Vietnamese about a grandmother’s garden and a measuring activity in the garden reinforce one another rather than competing for children’s attention.
In the early years, teams also plan for the environment rather than only for activities. A unit about how living things grow might bring plants, seeds, soil and magnifiers into the classroom, photographs of children as babies into the book corner, and baby dolls and care items into the role-play area. Children encounter the unit’s ideas through the materials around them, often before an adult introduces anything directly.
Documentation runs through the whole process. Teachers keep records of children’s questions, drawings, quotes and constructions, and revisit them with children, which helps young learners see their own thinking change. These records are also the evidence of learning shared with families and used in reflection meetings, so documentation serves teaching rather than adding a separate layer of paperwork.
The learner profile and approaches to learning
Ten attributes. The IB learner profile describes inquirers, knowledgeable, thinkers, communicators, principled, open-minded, caring, risk-takers, balanced and reflective. It applies to everyone in the school community, adults included, and is meant to describe the kind of people IB education aims to develop.
Making it real for young children. With three- to five-year-olds, teachers translate the profile into concrete moments: being a risk-taker might mean trying a new food or climbing a little higher; being caring might mean watering the plants. Abstract posters about attributes do little; noticing and naming them in action does much more.
Approaches to learning. The PYP identifies five categories of skills: thinking, research, communication, social and self-management. In the early years these largely overlap with what teachers already attend to, such as asking questions, expressing ideas, cooperating and managing feelings.
Agency. Children are encouraged to have voice, choice and ownership. In practice this means involving them in decisions about the classroom, following their questions and recognising their contributions to the learning community.
Becoming an IB World School
Schools cannot simply declare themselves PYP schools. The IB requires a process of authorisation that usually takes at least two years. A school first expresses interest and studies the programme, then applies for candidacy, during which it implements the PYP with the support of an IB consultant, trains its teachers through IB-recognised workshops, and develops its programme of inquiry and policies. A verification visit by the IB then determines whether the school meets the requirements to become an IB World School authorised to offer the programme.
After authorisation, schools are evaluated periodically and must continue to meet programme standards and practices. Teacher professional development is ongoing. This process gives the PYP label more consistency than labels such as Montessori-inspired or Reggio-inspired, which have no external verification, although quality still varies between authorised schools.
For early-years teams, candidacy is often a period of significant change, especially if the school previously followed a more teacher-led model. Teams report that the most demanding shifts are planning collaboratively, writing and revising units around central ideas, and learning to document children’s inquiry rather than only their finished products.
PYP alongside a national programme
In Vietnam, schools offering the PYP in the early years must still comply with national regulations for preschool education, and where a school’s licence requires it, with the Ministry of Education and Training’s preschool programme. The IB expects schools to integrate national requirements into their programme of inquiry, rather than running two separate curricula side by side.
Mapping is the practical solution: the team lists national development goals under the programme’s five areas, physical, cognitive, language, social-emotional and aesthetic, and shows where each is addressed in units of inquiry and in ongoing routines. Because both frameworks are broad and child-centred, the fit is usually good.
Language is the second integration question. Many PYP schools in Vietnam are bilingual, and the IB places strong value on home languages and on multilingualism. A unit of inquiry can be explored in both Vietnamese and English, with each language used where it serves children’s thinking best. Schools that are not IB-authorised, including those using blended frameworks such as Global Nexus, can still learn from the PYP’s approach to concept-driven inquiry while being clear that they are not IB programmes.
Families in Vietnam sometimes see an IB early-years programme as a direct route to IB later in school, and in schools that offer the full continuum it can be. It is worth explaining, though, that the value of the early years lies in the habits it builds, such as asking questions, expressing ideas and working with others, rather than in an early start on content. Those habits serve children in any later curriculum, IB or otherwise, and that is the most honest promise an early-years programme can make.
Câu hỏi thường gặp
From what age does the IB PYP start?
The PYP is designed for children aged three to twelve, so early-years classes for three-, four- and five-year-olds are part of the programme. Some schools also apply PYP principles with younger children in toddler classes, although the formal framework begins at age three.
Is the PYP a curriculum with set content?
Not in the sense of a fixed syllabus. The PYP is a curriculum framework that sets principles, themes, concepts and requirements, while each school writes its own programme of inquiry and integrates national or local requirements. Two PYP schools can therefore study different units while following the same framework.
How is learning assessed in the PYP early years?
Assessment in the early years is based on observation, documentation and conversations with children, not tests. Teachers record what children say and do, collect samples of work and reflect on progress with children and families. The aim is to support learning and inform planning, never to rank children.
What is the difference between PYP and Reggio Emilia in the early years?
Both value inquiry, play and documentation, and classrooms can look similar. Reggio Emilia is a pedagogical approach without a formal framework or accreditation, while the PYP is a structured framework with transdisciplinary themes, key concepts, a learner profile and an authorisation process. Many PYP schools draw on Reggio ideas in their early years.
Can a school call itself PYP-inspired without authorisation?
Schools may draw on inquiry-based ideas that are common in many approaches, but only authorised IB World Schools may present themselves as offering the IB Primary Years Programme. Schools that borrow ideas should describe them accurately, for instance as inquiry-based learning, without implying an IB connection they do not have.
How long does PYP authorisation take?
The process usually takes at least two years from the start of candidacy to authorisation, and preparation before candidacy can add more time. It includes teacher training, implementation with the support of an IB consultant, development of the programme of inquiry and policies, and a verification visit.