OSC Primary Years Programme – Grade 5 Exhibition
Every yearparents feel the pride that comes with watching their children graduate. Years of nurturing and nagging culminate in a rite of passage that symbolizes how their children have matured and developed. Here at the Overseas School of Colombo our transition from the Primary Years Programme to the Middle Years Programme is a movement that signifies a young person’s coming of age. This is called the PYP Exhibition. In the final year of the Primary Years Programme, students participate in a culminating project known as the Exhibition. Students are required to engage in a collaborative transdisciplinary inquiry process that involves them in identifying, investigating and offering solutions to real-life issues or problems. This year the Grade 5 students have done an exemplary job of tackling inequality in the local context.
They started by trying to understand what inequality means and where we might find it in our local community. They went on field trips, researched into basic needs for survival, watched documentaries, read story books involving oppression and interacted with guest speakers.Something incredible happened when they developed a passion, felt empathy and made human connections. They the students began to understand inequality as having something to do with them.
As a grade they embarked on research inquiries with a central idea in mind:Through active citizenship people can make a difference when confronting inequality within their community. From diverse topics such as poverty and Dementia,to child abandonment, the impact of war,environmental issues and alternative energy, from cruelty to animals, to gender discrimination or unequal access to basic needs like clean water and housing, students made an initial visit to a site in Colombo where they could learn about their chosen inequality. The purpose here was to observe, first-hand, inequality in the local context, gather a primary source of information and begin to imagine how a preadolescent can get involved in changing the state of inequality. Many students conducted interviews, gathered data and made observations. From here students did secondary source research to support what they had learned. At this point, the students delivered informal presentations to one another in an attempt to build a grade-wide general understanding of inequality in the local context. In addition, students began to formulate action plans where they detailed exactly how they intended to become part of a solution to the inequality they were studying.
The action has been incredible. Students advocated for sponsorship of butter cake at a soup kitchen to feed 900 people, by gathering donations from generous establishments like SenSaal, PaanPaan and Caravan Fresh. Donations were madeto a variety of places, including toys and stationery to Sarvodaya,and mosquito nets to slum dwellers who are impacted by Dengue. Articles were published in newspapers to spread awareness and leaflets were printed to share significant information.And the action got more creative from there. A group of students not only inquired into the plight of women being discriminated, they met Honourable Minister Rosy Senanayake with their concerns. Others donated funds to Families Relief for roofing sheets for houses of victims of war. The groups campaigning for animal rights raised funds to support projects by the Wildlife Association of Sri Lanka and Embark. One group is working towards setting up an Arpico biogas unit at OSC, to create an eco-friendly environment.In their work, the students have understood that inequality limits people’s access to basic needs and they are taking steps to confront that.
What remains, is that the students will write up their research findings to showcase through Language Arts, Mathematics, Performing Arts, Visual Arts and Technology. Exhibition day was June 9th and this is when the students will walk us through the learning journey they have taken to confront inequality within our community. While this event highlights their significant contribution to society, it is also symbolic of the transition they are making into secondary school. Here at the Overseas School of Colombo, we are extremely proud of the strides that our students have taken to battle inequality while deepening on their understanding of it, and trying to make a difference. We certainly live up to our mission: “The Overseas School of Colombo, an IB World School, is committed to guiding our global community toward international and intercultural understanding. OSC develops the whole person as a responsible learner, striving for personal excellence within a culturally diverse environment. ”