The IB Primary Years Programme (PYP) is a curriculum framework for young learners aged 3–12. Like all International Baccalaureate (IB) Programmes, the IB Learner Profile permeates all facets of school life in the Early Years and Primary.

The PYP is based on recognizing a child’s natural curiosity, creativity, and ability to reflect. It generates a stimulating, challenging learning environment to nurture the whole child and foster a lifelong love of learning. The PYP is transdisciplinary, meaning students learn across subject areas while inquiring into big ideas.

Young learners are intelligent, resourceful, and creative. They need a curriculum and environment that supports critical learning during these crucial early years. Through our inquiry-based approach, we engage and stimulate curious minds to explore, question, and wonder from a place of security. Classroom communities foster a growing sense of safety, well-being, and warmth.

Our daily interactions as a community focus on building secure and confident communicators who have a growing realization of their agency as they interact with the world around them. Using purposeful play as a vehicle for learning, we enable students to make personal connections to inquiries organically and authentically, building on existing knowledge and understandings as they develop transferrable skills in a facilitative environment.

Children engage in a balanced Early Years curriculum that meets the IB Primary Years Programme‘s standards and practices. Through carefully planned units of inquiry, children engage with big ideas in science and social studies, enabling them to develop transferable conceptual understandings. This foundation of knowledge and understanding is the platform on which they continue to grow as they build upon their learning from year to year and beyond the Early Years.

The immense benefit to parents and students is that WISS is the only school in mainland China where young learners can progress from kindergarten through to high school, completing every IB Programme. By offering all four Programmes, the skills endorsed in students during kindergarten flourish and bloom as they progress through the IB, with each level building upon their abilities.

The IB Primary Years Programme (PYP) is a curriculum framework for young learners aged 3–12. Like all International Baccalaureate (IB) Programmes, the IB Learner Profile permeates all facets of school life in the Early Years and Primary.

The PYP is based on recognizing a child’s natural curiosity, creativity, and ability to reflect. It generates a stimulating, challenging learning environment to nurture the whole child and foster a lifelong love of learning. The PYP is transdisciplinary, meaning students learn across subject areas while inquiring into big ideas.

Young learners are intelligent, resourceful, and creative. They need a curriculum and environment that supports critical learning during these crucial early years. Through our inquiry-based approach, we engage and stimulate curious minds to explore, question, and wonder from a place of security. Classroom communities foster a growing sense of safety, well-being, and warmth.

Our daily interactions as a community focus on building secure and confident communicators who have a growing realization of their agency as they interact with the world around them. Using purposeful play as a vehicle for learning, we enable students to make personal connections to inquiries organically and authentically, building on existing knowledge and understandings as they develop transferrable skills in a facilitative environment.

Children engage in a balanced Early Years curriculum that meets the IB Primary Years Programme‘s standards and practices. Through carefully planned units of inquiry, children engage with big ideas in science and social studies, enabling them to develop transferable conceptual understandings. This foundation of knowledge and understanding is the platform on which they continue to grow as they build upon their learning from year to year and beyond the Early Years.

The immense benefit to parents and students is that WISS is the only school in mainland China where young learners can progress from kindergarten through to high school, completing every IB Programme. By offering all four Programmes, the skills endorsed in students during kindergarten flourish and bloom as they progress through the IB, with each level building upon their abilities.

Dear Early Years Families,

In Early Years at the Western International School of Shanghai (WISS), teachers and students shape the learning environment together to transform each learning experience. Our Early Years Team nurtures each child’s holistic development by building a strong foundation for continuous learning and respectful relationships. We offer a safe environment where children are encouraged to feel valued as members of a diverse community. Children learn English and Chinese in a natural way that is supported by our units of inquiry.

We foster each child’s natural curiosity by encompassing the students’ individual interests along with opportunities for playful inquiry supported by the IB PYP framework. Every step of a child’s learning journey is important; students are able to build upon their previous experiences through explorations, inquiry, questions, and discoveries. We inspire our students to challenge and learn more about themselves and their community. This learning doesn’t stop in school, and we develop strong home-school partnerships that help students to connect their learning to experiences at home and beyond!

Every step of a child’s learning journey is important, and we cultivate each child’s future pathway by building their foundations as lifelong learners.

We look forward to welcoming you to the WISS community very soon!

Fiona Morris

Early Years Principal