The educational journey from Early Childhood to Year 12 is designed to be a vital and engaging experience, with learning programs that are student-centred, reflect real-life applications and foster holistic development.
Our curriculum and programs are intentionally interconnected and thoughtfully designed to prepare students. Students experience PYP in both Early Childhood and Junior School, and as they move into Senior School they experience MYP, RFP and VCE:
IB, what is it and why do we offer it?
Since its founding in 1968 the IB, or International Baccalaureate, has maintained a strong worldwide reputation, providing a framework for curriculums that foster holistic education, critical thinking and global perspectives.
The aim of all IB programmes is to develop internationally-minded people who, recognising their common humanity and shared guardianship of the planet, help to create a better and more peaceful world. The IB Learner Profile represents ten attributes highly valued by IB World Schools like Woodleigh. We believe these attributes, and others like them, can help individuals and groups become responsible members of local, national and global communities.
Woodleigh's well-established values of Respect for Self, Others and the Environment, align with the philosophy and culture of the IB. It is unique in mentoring students to take charge of their own learning; rather than memorising information students learn how to learn, making it a clear choice here at Woodleigh.
So, what does it look like in action?
Primary Years Programme (PYP)
PYP is for children aged 3 to 12 and is guided by inquiry-based learning. During these years of their school-based learning, engagement, meaning, purpose and a love of learning are paramount. Through a lens of six transdisciplinary themes, students gain a deeper awareness of the world around them by asking questions, exploring ideas, and developing sophisticated conceptual understandings. This approach strengthens knowledge and skills across, between, and beyond traditional subject boundaries. There is a powerful continuum of learning from the PYP to the next stage, the MYP.
Middle Years Programme (MYP)
The MYP is a challenging academic framework building on the conceptual thinking skills built during PYP. For students between 11 and 16, the MYP facilitates practical connections between classroom studies and the real world. An emerging sense of self at this time is nurtured with an interdisciplinary approach, applying learned skills in social, thinking, research, communication and self-management. MYP students effectively question the status quo, problem-solve the new, reflect on the learned, and engage and move through the unpredictability of the present.
Year 10 RFP
The Regenerative Futures Program (RFP) embodies Woodleigh's ethos of inquiry-based education, fostering progressive thinking, holistic development and specifically, a regenerative mindset. In the context of their well-established IB learner profile, Year 10 students at Woodleigh enter the RFP, a highly structured project-based learning program that spans the entire school year. It is student-led and fuelled by each learner's interests, with substantial mentorship.
By promoting personally relevant and challenging learning experiences, the RFP encourages students to connect classroom knowledge with deeper real-world applications. This cultivates depth of understanding, transferable skills and self-management, vital for success in the upcoming VCE and navigating an unpredictable future.
Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE)
By the time students reach VCE, they are so adept at self-management and ownership of their own learning that they are more than prepared to undertake the rite of passage that is VCE.
The skills, attributes, and capabilities gathered throughout their years of learning under the IB programme make for a better experience and lead to more genuine pathways.
Regeneration is the Future
Upon visiting our physical spaces, nestled in natural surroundings, it is easy to see why Woodleigh’s commitment to regenerative practices permeates so many aspects of the lived experience for our community.