Our complete school program from Kindergarten-Grade 12 aims to provide our students with continuity in terms of values, content, and teaching methods. To this end, we implement our school program beginning in Kindergarten and support our students during the transition through all subsequent curriculum programs. The basis of our school program at the Primary level is the curriculum from the International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO), the Primary Years Programme (PYP), and the Berin Framework Curriculum (Berliner Rahmenlehrplan).
Our BMS school curriculum is based on both of these programs, guided on one hand by international methods and standards, and on the other, by the content and learning targets of the local curriculum of the Berlin State. Our students not only learn in German and English at a native-speaker level but also receive the best national and international qualifications for their future career either in Germany or abroad.
Our students’ joy of learning and self-motivation rest at the heart of our school program. We use the intrinsic motivation of our students in order channel interest and attention to topics that are relevant to their further personal and academic development. Our students are actively involved in their own learning progress, made possible by a strong commitment to inquiry as the leading pedagogy for learning and a strong desire to build robust student agency. Our curriculum is organized around six transdisciplinary themes, designed around areas of knowledge which are of global significance for all students and are revisited each year with increasing complexity. These units of inquiry are substantial and in-depth, spanning from 3 to 8 weeks and focusing on central questions as the guiding force of inquiry. This methodology allows us to provide engaging, transformative, and meaningful learning to our students, who are able to make connections to prior knowledge, explore new ideas, investigate ways to address problems or shape new behaviors as a result of their learning. Our goal is to instill a sense of the HOW in learning so that our students may begin to actively embed this important skill along their journey of inquiry-driven learning.
We seek to accommodate the strengths and weaknesses of our students, their talents and interests, and to tailor our curriculum to their individual needs. With our student-centered teaching and learning, we provide detailed feedback in order to develop and elevate student potential.
In our Primary School, students from Grade 1-6 learn in age-appropriate groups with an average of 22 to 24 children per class. Each grade level comprises four classes, so that each year group includes up to 90 children. Each class is taught by an English speaker, who also teaches English and Mathematics, as well as specific teaching as related to the units of inquiry. The clasroom teacher is supported by subject-specific teachers, who are either German or English speakers and teach the subjects German, Sports, Art, Drama, and Music. This teaching team is responsible for the academic and personal success of each student.
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