The Learner Profile:
Our guide to fostering open-minded, responsible and respectful world citizens
One of the very exciting and unique aspects of our bilingual primary school is our commitment to both the German NRW state curriculum and the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (PYP). While the NRW curriculum is useful for those students who would like to pursue a German-based secondary education, the IB PYP is the shining star that shapes our learning and teaching environment. At the heart of this interactive, student-centred, comprehensive and interdisciplinary framework lies the Learner Profile. The IB learner profile represents a broad range of human capacities and responsibilities that encompass intellectual, personal, emotional and social growth. It is the IB and our mission statement translated into a set of learning outcomes for the 21st century. The development and demonstration of these attributes are foundational to students becoming internationally-minded, active and caring community members who respect themselves, others and the world around them.
There are 10 learner profiles that we explore throughout the year. We inspire to be caring, knowledgeable, open-minded, reflective, thinkers, balanced, risk-takers, inquirers, communicators and principled.
Each unit of inquiry focuses on two of the learner profiles. Throughout the units, students have a variety of chances to practice and reflect on their development of these learner profiles. In grades 1 and 2, students receive stickers when they have displayed a certain learner profile. The learner profile unites us all with a common focus: on the whole person, as a lifelong learner. It applies to all of us – student, teacher, parent or administrator – for we are all continually learning.
Leonie Julien, Bilingual Primary School (with the help of the International Baccalaureate Organization)
Find out more about how we teach according to the IB Learner Profile in our primary and secondary school sections.
