Three English Schools Foundation primary schools are planning to switch to the International Baccalaureate's Primary Years Programme (PYP), a move that is expected to be followed by its other primary schools, and ultimately by the dropping of the British curriculum across the ESF.
Sha Tin Junior School was yesterday due to inform the International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO) of its intent to adopt the programme after its council approved the move on Thursday.
Clearwater Bay School is consulting with its council and discussing with parents in preparation for offering the programme, an ESF spokesman said. Bauhinia School is making similar plans.
Sha Tin expects to have completed the professional development for full IB authorisation by April 2007. Principal Allan Weston said that the programme fulfilled the foundation's wider aims for a curriculum that was more international, had an enquiry-based approach to pedagogy and greater integration of subjects.
Debra Gardiner, deputy principal and programme co-ordinator, said she had led a team of six that spent a year investigating the most suitable curriculum model for the school. 'We were not looking in particular at the PYP, but best practice across the world,' she said.
The team favoured the flexibility of the programme, which would allow it to incorporate Britain's literacy and numeracy strategies that were working successfully in the school. Teachers were almost unanimously in favour in a secret ballot.
