Language policy and planning

Move from a school’s beliefs to classroom actions. Start with the language profile, agree commitments, then review what students and families experience.

Principles in plain language

• Language helps learners think, communicate and explore identity; teach it through meaningful tasks.
• Students bring useful language resources and may develop unevenly across languages and communication modes.
• Communication includes words, images, movement, sound and digital media; let these support and extend meaning.
• Every teacher can support the language needed for their subject; agree support, modelling and rehearsal rather than leaving the work to one department.
• Review the environment and practice as well as the learner: resources, staff beliefs and participation affect opportunities to learn.

Source context: supplied IB language-policy guidance (2008 and 2012), language and learning guidance (updated 2014), PYP scope and sequence (2009), PYP translanguaging (2018) and language tenets (2024). Programme-specific expectations should be checked against the requirements your school currently uses.