IB Middle Years Programme

At the centre of the MYP is the IB Learner Profile, which defines the type of students all the IB programmes (Primary Years Programme (PYP), Middle Years Programme (MYP), and Diploma Programme (DP)) are intended to develop.[7] They are:

• Caring
• Balanced
• Open-minded
• Knowledgeable
• Communicators
• Risk-takers
• Principled
• Reflective
• Inquirers
• Thinkers

There are six Global Contexts (GCs) which are applied to every course the student takes. They are designed to help students recognize the connection between what they learn in the classroom and the world around them, to tie the various subject areas together, and eventually to help students "see knowledge as an interrelated, coherent whole."[8]

The Global Contexts should be linked to every topic taught in class and every assessment they set.

The Global Contexts are as follows:

1. identities and relationships
2. personal and cultural identity
3. orientations in space and time
4. scientific and technical innovation
5. fairness and development
6. globalisation and sustainability

A core part of IB MYP is community service. The community and service area requires students to study and perform community studies and service throughout the programme.

For example, in the United States, some schools and districts, like the Upper St. Clair School District[9] and Montgomery County Public Schools (Maryland)[10] either require or highly encourage a set number of hours of community service to be completed by each student, while schools like Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools[11] and Round Rock Independent School District[12] require students to complete the "Community Project" for students to complete the programme during Year 3 or 4.

The "Personal Project" is meant to be a culmination of student learning, with a focus of the areas of interaction. Just as with the extended essay in the IB Diploma Programme, students are required to choose an academic or non-academic topic or subject for their project, which they are expected to complete over the course of the school year. Students are required to keep a personal journal while working on the process, and schedule regular meetings with an MYP teacher who will serve as their adviser throughout the year; in addition, a final reflection must be written upon the completion of the project which explains how it ties in with at least one of the Global Contexts.[13][14] To get the MYP certificate, the candidate must get at least 3 out of 7 in the final score.

The subjects taught in the MYP are divided into eight subject groups.[15]

Name in 2020	(before 2014)
Language and Literature	Language A
Language Acquisition	Language B
Integrated Humanities (Individuals and Societies)	Humanities
Sciences	Sciences
Mathematics	Mathematics
Arts	Arts
Physical and Health Education	Physical Education
Design	Technology

Schools can choose the subjects they teach within each subject group and how many. However, each subject group must receive a minimum of 50 hours of curriculum time each academic year. In years 4 and 5, schools can request to only require students to receive 50 hours of instruction in six of the eight subject groups.[16]

A student could take another "Language and Literature" course if they have sufficient proficiency in both (In MYP years 4&5 this could replace the Language Acquisition course). Schools are given much flexibility to allow them to introduce subjects they consider important and organize their own student assessment and reporting procedures.

However, the MYP gives clear criteria for each subject group. The criteria get progressively harder with the first year of MYP using the MYP 1 criteria set, then the second and third year using the MYP 3 criteria set and finally the last two years using the MYP 5 criteria set. Each year, MYP students participate in one interdisciplinary activity that combines at least two of the subject groups; there is a separate criteria set for interdisciplinary learning.

The MYP Certificate is the formal internationally recognised award related to the MYP. The MYP eAssessments are the form of the optional external moderation introduced in 2016.[17] To receive the MYP Certificate, each candidate must complete at least one eAssessment in each of these areas:

• Language and literature
• Individuals and societies
• Sciences
• Mathematics
• Interdisciplinary learning
• Language acquisition (or second Language and literature)
• Physical and health education, Arts, or Design
• The MYP Personal project

Within each area, the subject with the highest score, on the scale of 1 to 7 is counted, the results will be tallied to create a total out of 56. The pass mark is 28 and the candidate must meet the Service and Actions requirements set by the school.[18]

Each subject group uses four criteria to mark a student's ability in the subject. At the end of the year, teachers give a final score, out of eight, on each criterion based on the student's performance throughout the whole year.

MYP:Next chapter grade boundaries
Total Criteria Levels	Grade
1-5	1
6-9	2
10-14	3
15-18	4
19-23	5
24-27	6
28-32	7

The scores of the four criteria are added up and converted to a grade out of seven. This grade is meant to demonstrate the student's overall ability in the subject, with 1 being the lowest achievement and 7 the highest achievement.

The Chicago Tribune reported that in 1998 in that city's Beverly area, only 67 students in the 8th grade chose to attend a local public high school offering an IB curriculum. When a cluster of Beverly schools introduced the IB Middle Years Programme in the 1999–2000 school year, the number of 8th graders who chose to attend the local high school then increased to about 150. One student was quoted, "I had really good teachers in the IB."[42]