IB SCHOOL
Our children learn by asking questions that don't fit in one subject.
That's what the International Baccalaureate means here. It is not a separate class, not an extra fee, not a different set of children. It is a way of building the whole week that runs through every grade from 3K to 5th.
2025
PS 20 was authorized as an IB World School in February 2025, after a multi-year candidacy and a verification visit.
Six big questions, every year
Instead of teaching reading, science and social studies in separate boxes, our teachers build units of inquiry — stretches of several weeks where a class investigates one question from every angle at once. The questions come from six themes the IB uses in every one of its primary schools worldwide:
Who we are
Identity, health, relationships, what it means to be human
How we express ourselves
Stories, art, music, the ways people make meaning
How the world works
Science, weather, machines, how things behave
How we organize ourselves
Communities, systems, work, rules and fairness
Where we are in place and time
Homes and journeys, history,
how we got here
Sharing the planet
Resources, other living things, conflict, responsibility
Each class works through [number] of these a year. You can see every unit your child will meet, grade by grade, in our programme of inquiry. [Link]
What one unit actually looks like
THEME
[How we organize ourselves]
A worked example from [grade], so you can picture it rather than take our word for it:
THE QUESTION
[e.g. "Who decides what happens in our neighborhood?"]
OVER
[six weeks]
CHILDREN DO
[the reading, the fieldwork, the math, the writing, the making — in one list, so a parent sees the subjects folded together rather than named separately]
IT ENDS WITH
[what the class produced, and who they showed it to]
Children also take action as part of a unit: something they choose to do with what they've learned. It's a formal part of the programme, not an extra.
It ends with the Exhibition
In their final year, every 5th grader designs and carries out an inquiry of their own — choosing the question, doing the research, taking action on it, and presenting the whole thing to the school and to families. It's called the PYP Exhibition, and it's the piece of work children remember.
It's also the clearest answer to what five years here adds up to: an eleven-year-old who can pick a question worth asking, find out about it, decide what to do, and stand up and explain it.
The ten things we're trying to grow
Every IB school works from the same learner profile. You'll see this language in our mission and on classroom walls, and children learn to use it about themselves.
What being an IB school doesn't mean
Worth saying plainly, because the IB name carries associations from private schools that don't apply here.
It costs nothing.
PS 20 is a free, zoned New York City public school. The IB programme is part of what every child here gets.
There's no separate application, and no test.
You apply to PS 20 the same way you'd apply to any city school, through MySchools. Every child in the building is in the programme.
It's the Primary Years Programme, and that's the right one.
The IB also runs programmes for middle school, high school and careers. We offer the primary one because we teach 3K to 5th grade — you'll hear about the others when your child moves on.
It isn't the French programme.
Our French Dual Language classes are a separate thing that some children join at Kindergarten. Every child at PS 20 does the IB; not every child does French.