ABSTRACT
The vast majority of students attending international schools are aged between 3 and 12. No one questions the significance of the early years in the patterns of human learning. Indeed, research into the workings of the human brain make a convincing case for these being the important years. On the face of it, then, the importance of an international curriculum for the primary years would seem to be self-evident. An international pre-university programme, the International Baccalaureate (IB) has been established for over 2S years and in that period has been recognized as a programme of the highest quality. Yet a common curriculum for younger learners, the Primary Years Programme (PYP) of the IB, has only been established very recently. If an international primary curriculum is of such obvious importance, why has it been so long in coming?
