OUR HOLISTIC OFFER
Our programme has been created to encourage students to take increasing responsibility for their own learning process, assuming awareness and using the knowledge and skills acquired, and their personal talents, autonomously.
Autonomy is the key that will enable students to apply what they have learned concretely and to evaluate the information they receive critically.
At IS Siena, students develop their intellectual capacities and their awareness with the help of the scientific and art laboratories. At the centre of the teaching activities, however, are the extra-curricular activities. These aim to include and, at the same time, go beyond the traditional subjects to emphasize their interdisciplinary nature. Students are therefore led to develop a “holistic” vision of knowledge.
The International School offers the IB Middle Years Programme (MYP) which is the next step in the IB continuum of international education. The MYP builds on the foundations acquired in Elementary school, encouraging students to become independent, internationally minded, and lifelong learners.
All of our students receive a rich curriculum which is comprehensive and challenging, helping students build a strong foundation in the major subject areas as well as several foreign languages. Skills are developed alongside knowledge, and the students become thoughtful, creative and valuable members of the International and Italian communities. Our educators are caring and experienced and are aware that students in this age group need security, support and success.
CURRICULUM
Our aim is to deliver an International Education and at the same time, as for the primary school, we provide the important elements of the Italian State Curriculum. In these three years of middle school we take the Italian Scuola Media Programme and integrate it into the MYP programme so that Italian students are prepared for the end-of-year State Italian Exams which they invariably do superbly well in. Our international students in the main do not sit the Italian state examinations unless they wish to.
The MYP curriculum is organised around eight traditional subject areas:
| ARTS |
INDIVIDUALS & SOCIETIES |
LANGUAGE & LITERATURE |
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION |
SCIENCE |
MATHEMATICS |
DESIGN |
|---|
| drama, music, visual arts, dance |
History, Geography, Economics, World Studies |
English, Italian |
English, Italian, Spanish |
Biology, Chemistry & Physics |
|
Product design & Digital design |
PHYSICAL & HEALTH EDUCATION
Physical and Health Education in the IB Middle Years Program focuses on learning about and through physical activity.
The subject offers a variety of active learning experiences for students to develop their ATL skills, to understand the importance of being physically active, the holistic nature of well-being and to create the motivation to make healthy lifestyle choices.
During the curriculum students will have the opportunity to experience individual and team sports, dance and movement composition, martial arts, Yoga and a variety of other contemporary practices such as parkour and ultimate frisbee.
