IB-Middle Years Programme (MYP)

Sanford has been an authorized The International Baccalaureate® (IB) Middle Years Programme (MYP) since 2014. Through MYP, we provide academically rigorous instruction in all classes and supportive systems to help all students reach success.

MYP Framework Model

Notice the learner at the center of the framework model. We believe the student is at the center of everything we do at Sanford. The outermost ring shows that we want to keep international-mindedness as the purpose to everything we do for the learner.

The first ring around the middle shows important parts of the curriculum in all of our subjects: concepts, global contexts (real world applications) and approaches to teaching and learning (teaching best practices & study skills).

The next ring out shows that we value summative projects that add action and service to solve community problems. Community Project is the final project in 8th grade to combine learning from many subjects at Sanford. Personal Project is done in 10th grade at Roosevelt.

The last oragne ring shows the 8 required MYP subjects that we offer at Sanford. Design (engineering), Physical & Health Education, Arts & Language Acquisition (World Languages & ELL) are as important as subjects to teach middle school students as our traditional cores of Math, Language & Literature (English Language Arts), Sciences and Individuals & Societies (Social Studies).

MYP at Sanford Middle School

MYP Coordinator

Libby O'Connell, Sanford MYP Coordinator

Contact Libby: Libby.oconnell@mpls.k12.mn.us

Greetings! I'm Libby O'Connell, Sanford MYP coordinator. I've been at Sanford since 2010 and a teacher in Minneapolis Public Schools since 2001. I'm an MPS graduate too, having attended Barton Open School and South High school in the 80s and 90s. Then I spent 4.5 years at Grinnell College in Iowa studying economics and elementary education. I have my masters degree from the University of Minnesota in Math education. I'm so happy to keep making Minneapolis Public Schools strong for all kids.

As MYP coordinator, I provide instructional leadership in collaboration with the school’s principal and ILT for the development and continuous improvement of the IB Middle Years Programme at our school. I support the MPS Strategic Plan and School Improvement Plan with specific emphasis on standards alignment, curriculum design and delivery, assessment and professional development.

Some of my favorite tasks at Sanford include facilitating the MYP unit planning process to help teachers move collaboratively to a fully developed written, taught and assessed curriculum that will help us meet our mission and vision, collaborating across all MPS IB schools to ensure curriculum alignment, and coordinating the Community Project as a cumulative project for students time at Sanford.

School-Based MYP Policies

The policies below are required by the IB Programme. They were written during our authorization period in 2013-2014 and have been updated in 2023.

Assessment Policy

Inclusion Policy

Language Policy

Academic Integrity Policy

Access Policy

Complaints Procedure

MYP Unit Planning

MYP Unit Plan Overview

MYP Unit planner Poster Top of the Unit Planner Template

Unit Planning Overview

Unit Planning in the MYP framework guides our collaboration and instruction at Sanford. There are many parts to the MYP Unit Plan but here are a few that students will be come familiar. These parts guide the unit towards new learning and a summative assessment and require complex thinking and approaching to learning skills and applications of the learner profile.

Conceptual Development

Concepts are big ideas that have relevance within specific disciplines and across subject areas. MYP students use concepts as a vehicle to inquire into issues and ideas of personal, local and global significance and examine knowledge holistically. The MYP prescribes sixteen key interdisciplinary concepts along with related concepts for each discipline.

The MYP identifies 16 key concepts to be explored across the curriculum. These key concepts, shown below, represent understandings that reach beyond the eight MYP subject groups from which they are drawn.

Aesthetics	Change	Communication	Communities
Connections	Creativity	Culture	Development
Form	Global interactions	Identity	Logic
Perspective	Relationships	Systems	Time, place and space

Each unit has at least one and each subject area has 3-4 to focus on. Each subject also has related concepts that dive deeper into the specific area of study and units include a few of those related concepts in their unit plan as well.

Statement of Inquiry & Inquiry Questions

Teachers construct the statement of inquiry for a unit by combining a key concept, one or more related concepts, and a global context for the unit into a meaningful statement that students can understand. This statement expresses the relationship between concepts and context. Each unit has factual, conceptual and debatable questions to investigate the statement of inquiry. Students are also encouraged to develop their on inquiry questions during a unit.

Global Contexts

Teaching and learning in the MYP involves understanding concepts in context. Global contexts provide a common language for powerful contextual learning, identifying specific settings, events or circumstances that provide more concrete perspectives for teaching and learning.

Approaches to Learning

A unifying thread throughout all MYP subject groups, approaches to learning (ATL) provide the foundation for independent learning and encourage the application of their knowledge and skills in unfamiliar contexts. Developing and applying these social, thinking, research, communication and self management skills helps students learn how to learn.

Credit: MYP: From Principles into Practice

Learner Profile

Community Project

At Sanford, students must complete the community project in 8th grade (Year 3 of MYP)

The community project focuses on community and service, encouraging students to explore their rights and responsibilities to implement service as action in the community. The community project gives students an opportunity to develop awareness of needs in various communities and address those needs through service learning. As a consolidation of learning, the community project engages in a sustained, in-depth inquiry leading to service as action in the community. The community project may be completed individually or by groups of a maximum of three students.

MYP projects prepare students for further education projects and presentations, such as those in the DP and CP, the International Baccalaureate Programme options in 11th & 12th grades. There are strong links between the MYP projects and subject-specific assessments in the DP, such as the global politics engagement activity through the nature of the task and the presentation style of the report; however, MYP projects relate most directly to the cores of the DP and CP.

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