by Evie Wright, Grade 6 Student -

For eight weeks, CIS Grade 6 students worked through the process of the PYP Exhibition. During this time, we had the opportunity to engage with all the aspects of the PYP whilst showing off the attributes of the learner profile, attitudes and transdisciplinary skills through our work and our presentations.

The PYP Exhibition is a very big part of Grade 6 in CIS. We have to choose an issue that we feel very strongly about and work with others who feel the same way. Together we pick a central idea and then create our own lines of inquiry. A lot of research, planning and determination go into finding the best information and ideas for the group, so that our presentations are a success.

The Exhibition is basically a celebration of the end of the Primary Years Programme. It shows what we have learnt through our years in Primary School, and proves that we are ready to enter the Middle Years Programme.

This year, our central ideas fell under the Transdisciplinary Theme, ‘Sharing the Planet’. Students researched either rights and responsibilities, communities, access to equal opportunities or peace and conflict resolution. Our choices all depended on the issues provoked by our passions.

At the start of Exhibition, all of the Grade 6 students tuned in to the parts of the theme using chalk talks, brainstorming their ideas and discussing their issue with our teachers, PYP Coordinators, Vice Principals and the Principal. After tuning in and sharing ideas, we were grouped, based on our interests, and began collaborating within our teams. We looked at the key concepts and developed big questions to drive our inquiry. We then used these to create lines of inquiry and then our research began. We used various sources to gather our information, both primary and secondary. This was a very interesting phase in our journey as we became more knowledgeable about the issues. As a team, we sorted through this information to find what was key to our Exhibition and most connected to our lines of inquiry. All groups came together to present our findings to the wider community.

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As the Exhibition is a celebration of learning that occurs over many years, the whole CIS community comes together and helps us throughout the process. Every year, each group gets a mentor to help guide them along the way. We work with the mentor for about 40 minutes a week and discuss how the process is going, concerns and ideas on how to move forward in the process. Without the mentor, our final presentation wouldn't be as good, as I feel the direction our mentors provide is vital. In order to frame our thinking, mentors might ask us how we want our presentation to look, or what we are setting out to accomplish. Mentors have been excellent guides and helped us realise what was best for the group. I’m very thankful for all of the guidance from the mentors and our teachers.

Personally, and on behalf of many of the Grade 6’s doing their Exhibition, I found that when we are working on something that we are very passionate about it has a big affect on the way we work. I felt that it was much easier to learn about something that I was really interested in. Throughout the whole Exhibition process, I saw many happy faces that were very excited about doing their research and had a good time learning new things because they were very devoted to the issue they chose. This was a powerful learning experience for us all.