By Pat Maragos, PYP Coordinator at St PETER’S SCHOOL
On Friday afternoons, teachers sit down to plan alongside specialists in a process called horizontal planning. The students have gone home, the pace slows, and we organize the transdisciplinary unit as a cohesive team. We talk about how to shape our inquiry, to showcase evidence of student learning, and how to provide real world applications in regards to their knowledge, understanding and skills.
In addition, we are working on utilizing space efficiency to maximize student learning. In the science lab, for example, a group of young students moves freely, guided by our Lab 0-5 coordinator, Miss Niamh Scanlan. One student was opening and closing a door, trying to understand how it worked. Another kept rolling a ball, adjusting its position until it finally followed the path she had imagined and landed in the basket below. There were no instructions. Just curiosity, inquiry, trial and error, and questioning.
Not long after, next to Lab 05, a small group of Y2 students were investigating the role of light in celebrations. We learned the science of fire making and shared experiences regarding the meaning of fire when we celebrate. We talked about the fire triangle, safety measures, and its wider significance.
This is where inquiry begins. And this is why inquiry-based learning prepares students for real life.
Inquiry as a structured way of learning
At St PETER’S SCHOOL, inquiry-based learning in the Primary Years Programme is not improvised. It is grounded in a clear pedagogical framework. We aim to apply Kath Murdoch’s Cycle of Inquiry, across our transdisciplinary units from the Early Years through Year 5.
The cycle includes tuning in, finding out, sorting out, going further, reflection, and action. These stages are not rigid steps to follow in order, but interconnected phases that respond to students’ interests and needs. What matters is that learning is intentional, visible, and meaningful.
Students are not passive recipients of information. They are active participants in the learning process, gradually developing the skills they will need well beyond the PYP.
Tuning in: learning starts with questions
Inquiry begins with tuning in. Before introducing new content, we create opportunities for students to share what they already know, what they think they know, and what they are curious about.
This might involve exploratory stations, challenges, case studies, or gallery walks. In the Early Years, it often takes the form of play and exploration. These experiences help students learn that questions matter, and that not knowing is the starting point of learning, not a problem to be solved quickly. The notion of being comfortable with uncertainty is one of the most valuable skills students develop.
Finding out and sorting out: learning how to think
As inquiries develop, students move into finding out. Guided by their own questions, they gather information through experiments, direct teaching, books, experts, interviews, digital resources, and in Y4 and Y5, the use of technology such as AI, always used critically and age-appropriately in specific circumstances.
They document their learning using mind maps, journals, wonder walls, tables, and graphic organisers. These tools help make thinking visible and allow misconceptions to surface.
In the sorting out phase, students analyse, compare, contrast, and identify patterns. This is where critical thinking deepens. Students learn that understanding takes time, that ideas evolve, and that revisiting initial assumptions is part of learning. This mirrors real life far more closely than memorising isolated facts.
Going further: applying learning to the real world
Inquiry does not stop with what students are expected to know, understand and do. In the going further phase, they apply their understanding to new and unfamiliar situations, often driven by their own interests.
In Year 4, for example, students explore how money functions as a system. They investigate trade, banking, and exchange, but also design products, negotiate value, and reflect on responsibility and fairness. Mathematics, language, social understanding, and ethics come together naturally.
In another unit in Year 3, students examine significant people and events from the past, not to memorise dates, but to understand perspective, cause and consequence, and how individual actions shape the world over time. They practice their persuasive skills orally and in writing to create awareness about an injustice of their choice.
These experiences help students transfer learning across contexts, a skill that will help in their future.
Reflection and action: learning that leads somewhere
Throughout every unit, students are encouraged to reflect. They think about what challenged them, what surprised them, and how their thinking has changed. Reflection helps them become aware of themselves as learners.Inquiry also leads to action. Sometimes this action is visible, such as designing models, writing blogs, composing music, creating artwork, or sharing learning with others. Sometimes it is quieter, changing a habit, helping peers, or seeing an issue from a new perspective. One clear example of this was the election of the Student Council during the first term.
This is where inquiry becomes deeply human.
Preparing students for what comes next
One of the defining features of the PYP is its focus on equipping students with skills for the future. From the earliest years, learning is designed with progression in mind, preparing students not only for the next stage of school, but for life.
Tasks are designed to develop independence, organisation, reflection, and responsibility, gradually building the habits students will need in the MYP, the Diploma Programme, and beyond.
Students who grow up learning through inquiry are comfortable with complexity, and collaboration. They know how to ask questions, manage uncertainty, and adapt their thinking. These are not just academic skills. They are life skills.
Why inquiry matters
When I think back to those moments in the science lab, what stays with me is not the activity itself, but the way students engaged with it: curious, focused, and willing to try again.
Inquiry-based learning is not a trend or a technique. It is an educational framework of understanding the world. And it is one of the most effective ways we can prepare students for the future they will shape.
How does inquiry-based learning connect across the IB continuum?
Inquiry does not belong to a single stage of learning. At St PETER’S SCHOOL, the skills students develop through inquiry in the Primary Years Program — questioning, reflection, collaboration and action — evolve and deepen as they move through the Middle Years Program and the Diploma Program. This shared approach creates coherence across the IB continuum, helping students build understanding progressively and apply their learning with increasing independence as they grow.
