Leigh in Azerbaijan

The Exhibition was reviewed today under the two visiting people from the PYP, who are here for the 5-yearly re-authorisation visit. They are principals in Munich and Kazachstan (is it Almati?)

Michael and I had 30 mins with them along with the two ex P8 (Grade 5) teachers from last year. The assessment was that the Exhibition is very well organised, well developed and has a high quality. Michael made the comment that the sample Exhibitions listed on the PYP website were very light and not at all organised. It seems that the material has not been updated for some years and the concept has developed somewhat in the last few years.

It was made clear however that in P8 there should be 5 units of inquiry AND the Exhibition. (The authorising body for IB schools has a well-developed philosophy and a well-developed list of requirements.) For the last two years the school has doubled the length of the Exhibition, thereby reducing the number of units. We had been wondering if that was a good idea, as the expectations on students just grew and grew during our teaching of skills. I understand that the Exhibition always involves some pressure but in our case maybe we exacerbated the situation. Anyway, the challenge for next year is to achieve the same quality within a shorter timespan. We still have the option of having a longer unit, as long as we cut the length of some others.

I’ve requested an interactive white board (IWB) for next year but don’t know whether it will happen. I’ve been researching popular opinion on whether Smart Board or Promethean is better - seems there’s no consensus with some strong opinions on both sides. Then there’s the cheap option of using an electronic pad instead of the large IWB, and the possibility of the ultra cheap version of using a Wii Remote to do the same thing. There is even Kindlelab open source software to go with it.