The Middle Years Programme (MYP) is designed for students between the ages of 11 and 16. This period, encompassing puberty and early mid-adolescence, is a particularly critical phase of personal and intellectual development. The MYP aims to help students develop the knowledge, skills and attitude they need to participate actively and responsibly in a changing and increasingly interrelated world. In doing so, learning how to learn and how to evaluate information critically is as important as the content of the disciplines themselves. The MYP is based on three fundamental concepts:
- Holistic learning: the MYP offers an approach to teaching and learning that embraces yet transcends the focus on traditional school subjects. While insisting on thorough study of various disciplines, the MYP accentuates the interrelatedness of them, so advances a holistic view of learning.
- Intercultural awareness: MYP aims to foster understanding among young people. By encouraging students to consider multiple perspectives, we aim to foster tolerance and respect, hoping that this may lead to empathy.
- Communication: the MYP supports inquiry and understanding, and allows student reflection and expression. The International School Het Rijnlands Lyceum Oegstgeest offers a strong languages programme as a means of teaching appreciation of different cultures and ways of thinking and expressing. Besides languages, we see Visual and Performing Arts as well as ICT as important ways of communicating one’s views and thoughts.
The programme is built up around five common perspectives embedded within and visible across academic subjects. These five broad areas are known as the Areas of Interaction:
- Approaches to Learning is concerned with the development of effective study skills, sometimes referred to as “learning how to learn”. Beyond useful techniques, the goal is to nurture the intellectual discipline and habits of mind that will result in critical, coherent and independent thought, and in the capacity for problem-solving and decision making.
- Community and Service extends the focus beyond the classroom and encourages responsible, caring participation in one’s local setting and in the wider world. Through such first-hand experience, the student has an opportunity to learn how other people live while contributing something of benefit to society.
- Human Ingenuity is concerned with the products of the creative and inventive genius of people and their impact on society and on the human mind. The student learns to appreciate the human capacity and drive to transform, enjoy and improve the quality of life over time, taking into consideration the positive and negative consequences of human actions.
- Health and Social Education concentrates on preparing the student for a physically and mentally healthy life in which he/she is aware of potential hazards and is able to make informed choices. Respect for body and mind is the cornerstone upon which all learning is built.
- Environment stresses understanding the importance of conversation and asks the student to accept responsibility for maintaining a natural world fit for present and future generations.
