Yes. Teachers can access partially completed unit planners from previous examination sessions and can use this as a basis for planning their own units.

Interdisciplinary units are intended as a place where disciplines can be integrated in a way that is not normally possible with how individual disciplines are taught in a school. If you deliver integrated arts units that draw from multiple disciplines (media arts and visual arts or a combination of dance, music and theatre), then you should not create an interdisciplinary unit within the subject group because students already experience a similar integration. If, however, you deliver arts in modular units (with one discipline being studied at a time), an interdisciplinary unit would allow a new experience for students.

Interdisciplinary units must be collaboratively planned and implemented by at least two teachers.

The statement of inquiry should be a meaningful statement that helps students generate inquiry questions and allows them to investigate, discuss and understand the big ideas of the unit. A statement of inquiry does not have to be a statement that transfers to all subjects, situations and topics, as this is not possible. However, it should be broad enough that it can be explored through the different arts disciplines, in different contexts, between some other subjects and related to life outside of the classroom. To learn more about the statement of inquiry, please read the “Statement of inquiry” section of the “Inquiry: Establishing the purpose of the unit” section in MYP: From principles into practice (May 2014, updated April 2021).

In criterion A, where you see the word “information”, this is about information related to the movement(s) or genre(s), as well as other information that helps the students understand and investigate the statement of inquiry.

In criterion C, the focus is on the final creation, not the act of creating. Criterion C is about the students’ final artwork, for example, their final performance. Criterion B is more about the creative process that leads to their final artwork.

Teachers should plan their skill progression in the way that is most useful to their context. This might take into consideration backward planning from the post-16 or Diploma Programme (DP) skills they want students to have, or local and national standards.

Exploring an artist, artwork or art form within criterion A is fine, as those individual elements still connect to movements and genres. It might make sense for MYP 1/Novice students to focus on a smaller exploration, for example, looking at a single artist, whereas by MYP 5/Competent, they could be making a broader exploration of a movement(s) or genre(s).

Often, it will make sense to move from criterion A through to criterion D, and this is reflected in the arts eAssessment tasks. However, teachers are not limited to planning their units in this way. An example could be that, in a unit, a student explores a genre (criterion A), documents the development of skills inspired by this genre (criterion B), learns about another genre (criterion A), develops more skills (criterion B), then creates a final artwork using skills and ideas from both genres (criterion C) followed by a reflection (criterion D).

No. Students should progress from novice to intermediate, then to competent. However, teachers can plan when this happens. For example, they might move from novice to intermediate between MYP 1 and 2, between MYP 2 and 3, or even halfway through a year. Once students have moved up a stage, they should not regress.

The stages are designed to allow for easier use of mixed-year-level classes. Ideally, within a class, the students would be working at the same stage. This makes planning easier for teachers and makes expectations clearer to students. It will also help teachers with planning the skill progression for criterion C. However, in some cases, giving different stages might make sense, to allow for differentiation or to reflect how long a student has been in the class (for example, for band or choir classes made up of MYP 1–5 students).

In cases where schools have large, combined classes, with students in MYP 1–5 (for example, for band or choir classes), teachers might choose to use different stages for different students. Here, the stages would relate to the students’ experience of that class. For example, if a student is in their first year of choir/band, they could be graded with the novice level, whereas a student in their fifth year might be graded at a competent level.

The stages are related more to the school’s planned progression than a student’s individual journey. This means that if you have a student with a lot of arts experience joining the school in MYP 1, they would still be joining a novice class. Equally, if you have a student with only some basic arts experience joining the school in MYP 5, they would likely still join a competent class, as the classes are planned around the school’s progression routes, not individual student ability. This method of using stages will allow for greater equity between students when it comes to grading.

As a team, arts teachers should decide on how they want students to progress between stages. Schools should consider their context and the students’ exposure to the arts within their school. An example might be in a school where students do half a year of music, then half a year of theatre (in one year), with students progressing from novice to intermediate as they start MYP 3. Another school might have students having a full year of music and a full year of theatre (in one year), so here it might make the most sense to have students progress from novice to intermediate at the start of MYP 2. Where schools give students choice between the subjects, they might decide that students must do a certain number of terms/semesters of one discipline before they can move up a stage. Stages should be more a reflection of the course progression than of individual student ability.

All students wanting to achieve the MYP certificate should be working at a competent level within their arts subject in MYP 5. Students should have 70 hours of that arts subject in MYP 4 and 5, and ideally have had exposure to that discipline in MYP 1–3. Students should then have had enough exposure to be working at a competent level.