A Closer look into MYP

A Balanced Curriculum for Lifelong Learners

At AIA, the Middle Years Programme (MYP) provides a balanced, challenging, and internationally recognised education tailored to the developmental needs of young adolescents. The curriculum encourages students to think critically, explore ethically, and act faithfully in an ever-changing world.

How Do Students Learn?

The MYP requires at least 50 hours of teaching time for each subject group in each year of the programme. Students have the option to take courses from six of the eight subject groups within certain limits, to provide greater flexibility in meeting local requirements and individual student learning needs.

Each year, students in the MYP also engage in at least one collaboratively planned interdisciplinary unit that involves at least two subject groups.

MYP students also complete a long-term project, where they decide what they want to learn about, identify what they already know, discovering what they will need to know to complete the project, and create a proposal or criteria for completing it.

What do students learn?

MYP students study across nine subject groups, with a strong emphasis on interdisciplinary learning and Islamic integration.

Approaches to Learning

Students develop essential skills through five key Approaches to Learning (ATL):

Global Context

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.

These contexts build on the powerful themes of global significance that structure teaching and learning in the PYP, creating relevance for adolescent learners.

Service as action, through community service

Students take action when they apply what they are learning in the classroom and beyond. IB learners strive to be caring members of the community who demonstrate a commitment to service—making a positive difference to the lives of others and to the environment.

The Service as Action (SA) program is an important part of MYP because it promotes universal citizenship. This means accepting your role and your duty to serve the local, national and international community.

Learn more about Service as action

Personal Project

The Personal Project is a highlight of the MYP. In Year 10, each student completes an independent, self-directed project on a topic of personal interest. It promotes creativity, planning, goal-setting, and reflection—all key skills for future learning.

Examples include: