WELCOME
To ISR Middle School Programme
WHAT IS THE IB MIDDLE YEARS PROGRAMME (IB MYP)?
The MYP is an educational framework designed for students aged 11-16, which encourages students to make practical connections between their studies and the real world, fostering critical thinking, creativity, and global awareness. It emphasizes a balanced education integrating traditional subjects with interdisciplinary learning, ensuring students understand how knowledge and skills connect across disciplines.
Students learn to view their studies through different lenses, such as personal and cultural expression, global interaction, and sustainability, which enable them to relate their learning to the wider world, fostering a sense of international-mindedness.
THE MYP CURRICULUM
Each year, students in the MYP also engage in at least one collaboratively planned interdisciplinary unit that involves at least two subject groups. In the final year of the MYP, students undertake a personal project that reflects their interests and demonstrates their skills at the culmination of the program. It enables students to showcase their learning through inquiry in a way that is intentional and shared with our community in a meaningful way.
Students learn best when their learning experiences have context and are connected to their lives and their experience of the world that they have experienced. Using global contexts, MYP students develop an understanding of their common humanity and shared guardianship of the planet through developmentally appropriate explorations of identities and relationships, personal and cultural expression orientations in space and time, scientific and technical innovation, fairness and development, globalization, and sustainability.
At ISR, the IB MYP was chosen as the Middle School curriculum because we believe it offers a dynamic and challenging education that empowers students to think independently, learn collaboratively, and make meaningful contributions to their communities and the world. It also bridges the needs of the adolescent brain with the preparations and academic rigors required to prepare them for the IB Diploma Programme.
THE MYP UNITS
Conceptual understanding
Concepts are big ideas that have relevance within specific disciplines and across subject areas. MYP students use concepts as a vehicle to inquire into issues and ideas of personal, local and global significance and examine knowledge holistically. The MYP prescribes sixteen key interdisciplinary concepts along with related concepts for each discipline.
Approaches to learning
A unifying thread throughout all MYP subject groups, approaches to learning (ATL) provide the foundation for independent learning and encourage the application of their knowledge and skills in unfamiliar contexts. Developing and applying these social, thinking, research, communication and self management skills helps students learn how to learn.
Service as action, through community service
Action and service have always been shared values of the IB community. Students take action when they apply what they are learning in the classroom and beyond. IB learners strive to be caring members of the community who demonstrate a commitment to service—making a positive difference to the lives of others and to the environment. Service as action is an integral part of the programme, especially in the MYP community project.
Inclusion and learning diversity in MYP
As part of the MYP curriculum, schools address differentiation within the written, taught and assessed curriculum. This is demonstrated in the unit planner and in the teaching environment, both of which are reviewed during programme authorization and evaluation. The MYP allows schools to continue to meet state, provincial or national legal requirements for students with access needs. Schools must develop an inclusion/special educational needs (SEN) policy that explains assessment access arrangements, classroom accommodations and curriculum modification that meet individual student learning needs.
STEM education in the MYP
The MYP curriculum focuses on STEM as an important perspective from which to consider integrated teaching and learning in concepts and skills related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
External assessment and recognition
In the final year of the programme, optional MYP eAssessment provides IB-validated grades based on examinations and course work. Students who undertake external assessments are eligible for MYP course results and the IB MYP Certificate.
School-based assessment
MYP assessment focuses on tasks created and marked by classroom teachers who are well-equipped to make judgments about student achievement. These tasks are rigorous and embrace a variety of assessment strategies. MYP teachers assess the prescribed subject-group objectives using the assessment criteria for each subject group in each year of the programme.
THE ISR DIFFERENCE
ISR is one of the longest established international schools in Latvia. ISR was founded in 1997 as a playgroup and the playgroup developed into a school. Through carefully following each child’s growth and learning, we foster individual success both in academic development and social-emotional wellbeing. Teachers aim to differentiate and personalize learning as much as possible to help each student reach their potential.
Whether their stay is short lived or long lasting, all members of the ISR family call Latvia “home”. ISR is an International School with a Latvian Heart. Families who are part of our community experience and celebrate Latvia as a unique country with a rich heritage. When families embark on the next phase of their life journey, they take a little piece of Latvia with them.
ISR prides itself on having strong roots into the local community through charity work and sharing both educational knowledge and resources with local schools.
At ISR, our students’ social-emotional wellbeing is at the center of everything we do. In Middle School, it takes the form of a strong Pastoral Care program. In order for the ISR mission to be a living statement, it is imperative all members of the community feel safe and secure. The emotional and social well-being of staff and students is maintained through the relationships developed, allowing members to grow and develop.
In Middle School, students are taught by a number of different teachers thus students need to know there is one teacher who is providing not just academic support but also emotional support. In Secondary, each grade has at least two advisors. The advisor provides pastoral support to all students in their advisory group. Throughout the year advisors develop a relationship with the students in their advisory group that allows the students to feel safe and supported in the school.
Interested?
Book an introductory session with our Admissions department:
admissions@isriga.lv
+371 2511 9337
International School of Riga is a Candidate School* for the IB MYP. This school is pursuing authorization as an IB World School. These are schools that share a common philosophy—a commitment to high quality, challenging, international education that ISR believes is important for our students. *Only schools authorized by the IB Organization can offer any of its four academic programmes: the Primary Years Programme (PYP), the Middle Years Programme (MYP), the Diploma Programme (DP), or the Career-related Programme (CP). Candidate status gives no guarantee that authorization will be granted. For further information about the IB and its programmes, visit http://www.ibo.org.
