The International Primary Curriculum (IPC) is an independent programme of education for learners aged 5 to 11, cited by The SAGE Handbook of Research in International Education in 2015 as one of the three major international systems of education[1] and one of two identified programmes specifically designed with international education objectives.
[2] The IPC forms part of a continuum of curricula, including the International Early Years Curriculum (IEYC) and the International Middle Years Curriculum (IMYC), and was identified as forming a key part of the rise in international education.
[3][4][5][6] The curriculum was developed in the late 1990s[7] by a group of international school educators and the support of Shell Oil's international education division[8] and was launched as a standalone international curriculum in 2000.
The 7 foundations are listed as:[9] The IPC is presented to schools through a number of thematic units of learning, which bring together the learning of multiple subjects associated with that theme over a 3, 6 or 9 week period.
All the units follow the same Process to Facilitate Learning, which has the following stages: The 8 Personal Learning Goals of the IPC are to become: The subjects included in the IPC subject learning goals are: As of 2021, the IPC is used by over 1,000 international schools in over 90 countries.