Educating future citizens of the world

Eton International School has adopted the International Middle Year’s Curriculum (IMYC) to allow students to access various avenues of creative learning while developing an international mindset. Eton will start implementing IMYC in school year 2013-14.

As Isabel Du Toit, fieldwork education IMYC regional manager, stressed during Eton’s recent launch of the program, the world was changing.

Developed by Fieldwork Education, IMYC, the theme-based international curriculum,  uses multiple intelligences to meet the needs of 11- to 14-year-olds in a dynamic and fast-changing world.

It grants equal importance to both academic goals and personal growth to give students knowledge, skills and understanding. It also promotes globalized awareness among students.

“IMYC supports a more progressive view of education that recognizes that learning takes place outside the classroom and that the role of schools is to prepare students for meeting the open-ended problems they will face throughout their lives,” said Eton school president Jacqueline Marzan-Tolentino.

IMYC utilizes current media techniques and active skills-based learning and promotes self-reflection.

At the symposium, Du Toit emphasized that  the brain was in its critical developmental stage during the teen years. This was why they introduced a new way of learning that would help keep a  student interested and engaged.

Information overload and poor retention may be remedied with the innovative style of having a theme or “Big Idea.” IMYC provides six-week learning units for every year group with such themes as adaptability, discovery, balance and creativity.

One example of Big Idea  asserts: “Success over time requires persistence.”

Through IMYC, more fun activities outside the classroom will be conducted.

Earlier, Eton adopted the International Primary Curriculum (IPC), which is now used  in over 1,500 schools in Europe and Asia.

Being the first IPC and IMYC school in the Philippines, Eton aims to make international education accessible to all.

Tolentino invited teachers, parents and everyone to help make the newly introduced curriculum successful. “It’s all about collaboration. It’s not about competition,” she said.