By Savannah Lo and Cathy Chen

The 2021 PYP Exhibition began at 9:00 A.M. on March 26th, 2021, when students and teachers began logging onto Padlet and looking through each others’ work. There were people from Years 1 to 13 who would view the Padlets and give students feedback. The event opened with a webinar to introduce the Exhibition. There were speakers from each class to talk about the process of the Exhibition.

The PYP Exhibition is a Year 6 project where students do research on different global goals and use their newfound knowledge to find ways to take action. The Exhibition is an opportunity for students to show what they have learnt over the years in primary and help teachers in both primary and secondary understand the students’ strengths and weaknesses. Due to the ongoing pandemic, the Exhibition was held online this year and students shared their experiences through a padlet. The padlets were accessible to all from March 26th to April 30th.

The Year 6 students got a total of eight weeks to prepare for the Exhibition, starting from January 25th until March 26th. The time in between could be broken down into three sections: planning, research, and action, to make it easier to help explain the process students went through. 

During the first three weeks, the students went through the planning stage, where they did activities like “Compass points” to find out their feelings and thoughts on the Exhibition, and other tasks like “Three questions”, “Super fast quiz”, “Issues brainstorm”, “Draft issue paragraph”, “KW Chart” and “Think, Puzzle, Explore” to find out more about what global goals they were passionate about and what the students already knew about their topic. The students also prepared their strengths, next steps for the Approaches to Learning (ATLs) and Learner profiles (LPs), and wrote an email to their mentors.

Weeks 4 to 5 was when the students went through the research stage. Students started to form their key concept questions, which were used to guide them through their research and help get the most information possible. The questions were separated into different categories: Form, Function, Causation, Change, Connection, Perspective and Responsibility. Each main question from each category had smaller and more detailed questions under them which were used to collect smaller details. The teachers also allowed students to go to the library and had NGOs come and give a presentation on the topics that the students were doing, so students could collect information from a variety of resources. The students then referenced the sources they used on NoodleTools and put the bibliographies on their padlet and MTR Grid.

During the last three weeks, the students went through the action stage, where they thought of ways to take action and help achieve the global goals. Some students participated in NGO activities and donated to charities whilst others thought of making posters and animated stories to send to NGOs for their social media accounts. After the students finished their action, they recorded their experiences on their padlet and waited for Exhibition day.

On Exhibition day, teachers and students changed their Padlet settings to organization wide so that the school community could view the whole Year 6 Padlet, each individual class’s Padlet, and all the students’ individual Padlets. 

Students and teachers had varied reactions to this year’s PYP Exhibition.

Year 6 student Karis Lee reflected upon the event positively: “My topic is animal abuse and illegal hunting. I thought that exhibition was a fun experience. I think that the exhibition is okay as it already was and doesn’t need changing.” 

Year 6 teacher Rachel Morgan agreed: “I think the exhibition is an excellent learning experience because the students get to learn in depth and inquire into something they are passionate about and make a difference.”

Year 6 student Charisse Chan thought that some points were lacking. “My suggestion for the exhibition (if hosted in person) is for students still to have Padlets with their work on it and just share their Padlet in person so viewers can interact and ask questions... My advice for future students is to not leave everything to the end and calm themselves down when they’re stressed.”