Our Southbank Hampstead and Southbank Kensington campuses host children from age 3 to 11 and offer the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme curriculum (IB PYP).
Southbank Hampstead and Kensington have been an authorised IB PYP school since 1998 and are regularly evaluated by the IB. The Primary Years Programme is the first part of the IB’s curriculum for 3-18 years olds culminating in the Diploma Programme.
The two primary campuses are relatively small, with a maximum capacity in each of around 220 students. This means the schools have a family feel and are a close-knit community. The diversity of cultures and mother tongue languages represented among members of each class are celebrated and provide the opportunity for children to learn from each other. This forms a strong, positive and collaborative community among the children and fosters an appreciation for the unique backgrounds and experiences we all bring to our learning community.
The central tenet of the PYP is to develop the attributes and traits identified in the IB Learner Profile.
Primary Years Curriculum
Students are encouraged to become: inquirers, thinkers, communicators, risk-takers, and to be knowledgeable, principled, caring, open-minded, balanced and reflective. They develop these attributes within the classroom, during Town Meetings (assemblies), in the playground, and while participating in Southbank’s many extracurricular activities.
The PYP is all about inquiry: the process through which a learner moves from his or her current level of understanding to a new and deeper level. Our students will be:
- Exploring, wondering and questioning
- Collecting data and reporting findings
- Taking and defending a position
- Using critical thinking skills to understand a concept
- Making and testing theories
- Experimenting and playing with possibilities
- Solving problems in a variety of ways
By using inquiry-based learning, the PYP engages and challenges students who have many diverse perspectives, values, cultural backgrounds, and languages. Southbank is committed to a developmental approach. This means that students may progress through the programme at different rates.
Subject groups within the PYP include: languages, mathematics, science, the arts, social studies and personal social and physical education.
For a list of extracurricular activities offered at our Kensington and Hampstead campuses, please visit the School Life page.
