Programme of Inquiry

Whether you are a new family to St Andrew’s School or a seasoned one, you would have noticed that your children from ELC – Year 5 are always engaged in a Unit of Inquiry. These units are a fundamental component of the Primary Years Programme (PYP) framework. What underpins this framework is our Programme of Inquiry (POI).

"A well-designed POI ensures that students experience a balance of subject-specific knowledge, skills, and conceptual understandings, alongside opportunities to develop the attributes of the IB learner profile and opportunities to take action."

© International Baccalaureate Organization, 2005-2023

The Programme of Inquiry is organised under six Transdisciplinary Themes:

• Who We Are
• Where We Are In Place and Time
• Sharing the Planet
• How We Organise Ourselves
• How the World Works
• How We Express Ourselves

The creation of the Programme of Inquiry is a collaborative and ongoing process between teachers and students, which is reflected upon and reviewed to ensure that it remains aligned with The Australian Curriculum, is linked authentically to other subject areas, and meets our learners' needs.

What makes this framework so unique is how the same Transdisciplinary Theme can run across year levels but through the lens of different key concepts, which creates vastly different units that are conceptually and developmentally appropriate for our learners.

For example, under the theme, Sharing the Planet, Year 3 will be inquiring into sustainable food through the concepts, responsibility and function. Year 5 under the same theme will be inquiring into forms of action and how people make a difference through concepts of change and connection.

Mary-Anne Muhl
Primary Years Program Coordinator