Richard Snell has joined the faculty to serve as the International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years Programme (PYP) curriculum coordinator. “I'm so excited to have someone joining our team with so much experience and passion for curriculum and teaching,” said Elementary Principal Sue Miller.

Snell’s 35 years experience in education includes teaching across the elementary grades and administrative positions. Coming to IPA from Catlin Gable School in Oregon, he also taught at the American School in Japan where he served as director of the Nursery-Kindergarten division for eight years. He brings wide expertise to the coordination of curriculum planning and development in the elementary division.

Snell, and his wife Fran Snell, also an experienced elementary educator who will be teaching first grade, are looking forward to working at IPA. “What sold us on coming to IPA was the good work teachers are doing here. Being long-term educators, we decided this would be a wonderful place to extend our careers,” said Snell. “After knowing so many schools, we go a lot by the feel of a place, and when we visited the campus we were very impressed by the spirit at IPA.”

In addition to IB training for teachers during the 2011 summer break, part of the process of gaining IB World School authorization involves developing and documenting the PYP curriculum across all grades. Snell will work with the elementary teachers, coordinating and guiding that process. “He will also act as a liaison between our school and the IB organization,” explained Miller.

“The elementary teachers invested many hours of work last school year in writing unit plans organized around the six IB themes,” explained Snell. “Much of what the IPA elementary school has been doing fit well with the IB goals, it just needed to be organized according to the IB framework.”

The goal this year, as Snell acts as a mentor, is for the teachers to refine their unit plans, teach them, and then reflect on the outcomes. This is what teachers do all the time, but in this case there is a particular structure needed to arrange the documentation according to IB requirements. That’s Snell’s job to coordinate.

The goal is to have completed all the curriculum refinements according to IB requirements by the end of the 2011-12 school year, complete all required IB teacher training by the end of summer 2012, and have the PYP accreditation visit in the winter/spring of 2013.

Snell will also conduct parent information sessions to promote an understanding of the IB and PYP program. “We want parents to understand that the IB PYP is the same child centered approach already prominent at IPA,” said Snell. “The children will continue to learn through inquiry and problem solving, actively engaged in their own learning.”

In other words, student experience won’t change a great deal as the school gains IB authorization. The faculty, however, will be doing the planning and training that will result in an additional external measure of the excellence of the program. Becoming an IB World School also links IPA with an international network of schools who share the same high educational standards and gives faculty access to rich resources for the classroom.