International primary & secondary school in Bonn, Germany

Bonn International School (BIS), Bonn:
As our region’s most established International Baccalaureate World School, BIS offers its students an excellent education in a nurturing, multicultural community. We are an English-speaking school delivering the three comprehensive programmes of this internationally-renowned organization.

Primary Years Programme - Early Learning (3-5 years):
The Early Learning (EL) section of the Bonn International School (BIS) offers a programme for 3 - 5 year old children. The programme is an integral part of the Primary Years Programme of the International Baccalaureate Organization (IB). In EL, we value a safe and warm environment in which children are stimulated to make their own discoveries about the world around them.

Through structured play and activities we focus on:
* Language development (listening to stories, reading books together, sharing experiences from home, joining in with rhymes and songs)
* Social development (playing together, solving problems, developing self-confidence, self-management and organisation skills, understanding and following daily routines)
* Mathematical development (counting, sorting, comparing, data handling, number recognition, shape and space, pattern)
* Fine and gross motor development (music and movement, physical education)
* Artistic development (Arts, Craft, Music, Drama)

Primary Years Programme Ages 6-11:
In the Primary Years Programme (PYP), students are taught to understand that learning is a continual process of asking questions and looking for answers. Teachers work with students through a programme of inquiry, to develop the student's understanding of concepts, skills, and knowledge.

BIS promotes "international mindedness". We support students to be inquirers, thinkers, communicators, risk-takers, knowledgeable, principled, caring, open-minded, balanced and reflective. These are the attributes of the PYP Learner Profile which forms the basis of everything we do in the PYP.

The Primary Years Programme (PYP) provides an educational framework based upon what is currently known about how young children learn. It draws on the world's best practices in elementary school instruction. Mathematics, Language, Social Studies and Science are all offered in homeroom classes. German, Art, Physical Education, Music, Information Technology are all offered by specialised subject teachers

At BIS we value an understanding of concepts that are relevant and global. Throughout the school year, each class at BIS will focus on 6 Units of Inquiry. When at all possible, the different subjects are taught in the context of these units. This integrated approach makes learning meaningful and relevant. The units provide a framework for focused inquiry by the whole class but also allow the students to follow their own inquiries.

Middle Years Programme - Age 11-16:
The Middle Years Programme (MYP) provides a framework of academic challenge and life skills for students aged 11-16 years. The five-year programme offers an educational approach that embraces yet transcends traditional school subjects. It follows naturally from the Primary Years Programme and serves as excellent preparation for the Diploma Years Programme.

The MYP, like the other two programmes of the International Baccalaureate Organisation, is based on the premise that education can foster understanding among young people around the world. Intercultural awareness is central to the programme; to enable future generations to live more peacefully and productively than we do today.

Students at this stage - early puberty to mid-adolescence - are in a particularly critical phase of personal and intellectual development. This is a time of uncertainty, sensitivity, resistance and questioning. An educational programme needs to provide them with discipline, skills and challenging standards, but also with creativity and flexibility. The IBO builds its programme around these considerations but is also concerned that students develop a personal value system by which to guide their own lives, as thoughtful members of local communities and the larger world.

Diploma Years Programme - Age 16-19:
The International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO) is a worldwide nongovernmental educational organisation with links to UNESCO. The organisation’s mission is humanist in orientation and stresses international understanding. According to the IBO, these aims are embodied in the structure and content of the upper secondary or Diploma Programme curriculum.

Created in 1968, the IBO's Diploma Programme is a demanding pre-university course of study that leads to examinations. It is designed for highly motivated secondary school students aged 16 to 19. The programme has earned a reputation for rigorous assessment, giving IB diploma holders access to the world's leading universities. The Diploma Programme's grading system is criterion-referenced: each student's performance is measured against well-defined levels of achievement consistent from one examination session to the next. The IBO has shown, over the course of 30 years, that students are well prepared for university work.

The programme is a comprehensive two-year international curriculum, that generally allows students to fulfill the requirements of their national or state education systems. The Diploma Programme incorporates the best elements of national systems, without being based on any one. Internationally mobile students are able to transfer from one IB school to another.

The programme was born of efforts to establish a common curriculum and university entry credential for students moving from one country to another. International educators were motivated by practical considerations but also by an idealistic vision: students should share an academic experience that would emphasis critical thinking, intercultural understanding and exposure to a variety of points of view .