Willard's IB Newsletter

Dear Parents,

The goal of the IB newsletter is to help you better understand the IB program and its benefits for your child. It will also serve as a valuable resource to keep you connected with classroom happenings, share insights about the IB curriculum, and provide tips on how you can best support your child's learning at home.

Enjoy,

Melanie Gray

IB Coordinator

The IB learner profile assists students in developing into internationally minded citizens who recognize their common humanity and shared guardianship of the planet, helping create a better and more peaceful world.

As IB learners, we strive to be:

• Inquirers: We know how to learn independently and with others.
• Knowledgeable: We engage with issues and ideas that have local and global significance.
• Thinkers: We exercise initiative in making reasoned, ethical decisions.
• Communicators: We collaborate effectively, listening carefully to the perspectives of other individuals and groups.
• Principled: We take responsibility for our actions and their consequences.
• Open-minded: We seek and evaluate a range of points of view, and we are willing to grow from the experience.
• Caring: We act to make a positive difference in the lives of others and the world around us.
• Risk-takers: We are resourceful and resilient when facing challenges and change.
• Balanced: We recognize our interdependence with other people and our world.
• Reflective: We work hard to understand our strengths and weaknesses to support learning and personal development.

"What is the Learner Profile", Smore October 2023, https://secure.smore.com/n/vcxy7-comets-pyp-monthly-newsletter

Ways Parents Can Help Develop Students to Be Inquirers at Home:

• Visit places that spark inquiry, like museums, parks, or nature preserves.
• Explore the areas of your child's interest by visiting the library to borrow books.
• Develop an understanding of the Internet. Work with your son or daughter when the Internet is being used, and explore why some websites may not reputable.
• Model being an inquirer: Ask questions and wonder!
• Ask open-ended questions, such as "What do you notice?"
• Model being a learner: "Here is how I will find out."
• Praise your child for asking a question.
• Meet a question with a question - "How could you find that out?"
• Be prepared to inquire together - "Let's figure this out together."
• Have your child write down their wonders in a journal. Spend time researching these wonders!

"Ib Learner Profile: Inquirer.” Smore, 3 June 2020, https://www.smore.com/hf3nr-ib-learner-profile-inquirer.

IBO.org

From birth, children are ‘hands-on’ natural inquirers and learn through playful interactions with people and their environment. Play is an essential aspect of a child’s healthy development. Through play-based learning, children develop and nurture fundamental knowledge and skills.

Here are some suggestions on supporting student inquiry through play based learning:

• Materials – Can be store-bought (board games, Lego, paint, jigsaws) or household items for open-ended play (scarves, clothes, boxes, containers, stones, shells).
• Space: Indoors or outdoors, large or small. Even a blanket-covered table can spark excitement.
• Time: Give children long, uninterrupted playtime to dive deeply into their play.
• Mess: Play is rarely tidy—one block house can grow into a whole city.
• Join in: Respect children’s rules; support play without taking the lead.

IBO.org

Willard has policies that will help parents and stakeholders better understand our IB Program.

1. Assessment Policy - Grading Philosophy and Process
2. Language Policy - Establishes principles for language learning
3. Special Education/Inclusion Policy - Aims to create accessible and equitable learning experiences for all learners.
4. Academic Integrity Policy - Emphasizes principles of honesty and ethical behavior in learning
   
5. Admissions Policy - Enrollment procedures

Our policies are located on our website under the International Baccalaureate tab > IB Program > Policy Documents - https://willard.pusd.us/academics/international-baccalaureate/ib-program/policy-documents

International Mindedness is central to the IB Mission of creating a peaceful and better world through education that builds intercultural understanding and respect. International Mindedness is a view of the world in which people see themselves connected to the global community and assume a sense of responsibility towards its members. Internationally minded people appreciate and value the diversity of peoples, cultures, and societies in the world.

IBO.org

“Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world.”

-Nelson Mandela