Westlink’s elementary school provides a wonderful learning environment which is full of hard work, creativity and enthusiasm. The experience, knowledge and skills of our highly qualified staff create an engaging and positive atmosphere where students can dream, strive and succeed as competent, independent learners.
All classes have highly qualified and experienced teachers. Each class has an overseas qualified teacher and is supported by a locally qualified Vietnamese assistant teacher.
The students use an inquiry-based approach to learning, stemming from the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program (IB PYP), which is then combined with outcomes from the US Common Core curriculum.
Units of Inquiry
The PYP is based on transdisciplinary units of inquiry. Students undertake 6 units of inquiry each year which encourage them to inquire, think and learn. These units incorporate traditional subjects such as History, Geography, Science, and English.
English and Mathematics
As well as being included in the units of inquiry, English and Mathematics will also be taught separately using the US Common Core as the academic benchmarks for each year level.
Specialist Subjects
The vast majority of learning in elementary school takes place in the classroom, with the class teacher and assistant. However, specialist teachers of Music, Drama, Physical Education, Vietnamese and Art work with the class teachers to provide a broad, balanced and rigorous program.
Both the traditional subject areas and the units of inquiry allow students to acquire and apply a set of transdisciplinary skills: social skills, communication skills, thinking skills, research skills, and self-management skills. These skills are relevant not just to learning whether formal and informal but more importantly to our ability to dream, strive and succeed.
Our students also benefit from newly built, state-of-the-art facilities, no matter what subject they are doing.
PYP Exhibition
Students who are in Year 6 (the final year of the Primary Year Program) are expected to carry out an extended, collaborative inquiry project, called the PYP Exhibition, under the guidance of their teacher and a mentor. This major assessment piece has a strong emphasis on synthesizing all the elements of the program. The Exhibition is the main event in the academic life of each student, as at the Exhibition, the students present the findings of their extended inquiry to family, friends and the wider community, and so demonstrate the attributes of the learner profile. It is an event not to be missed and marks the transition from elementary education to middle years.
For more information on the IB PYP, click here.
