What is the International Primary Curriculum (IPC)?

What the IPC is

The International Primary Curriculum was developed in the late 1990s by Fieldwork Education, the curriculum arm now part of Nord Anglia Education. It was designed to give international schools a primary framework that was thematic, transferable across borders, and connected to the global context their pupils actually live in. The IPC is not a national curriculum and is not regulated by a government. It is a private curriculum framework that schools licence and adapt, and which is widely respected in the international school market as a credible alternative to a single national primary programme.

The IPC covers ages roughly 4 to 12. It is built around units of work that combine multiple subjects, each unit themed around a topic such as Chocolate, Active Planet, Inventions That Changed The World, or Mission to Mars. Each unit lasts four to eight weeks, includes geography, history, science, art, music, technology and a thread of international understanding, and ties to clear learning goals at the appropriate age level. A school running the IPC chooses which units to teach across the year and may write its own additional units alongside the published catalogue.

How a typical IPC unit works

A typical IPC unit opens with what the programme calls an entry point: a memorable activity that hooks the children into the topic. For a Chocolate unit this might be a class tasting, for an Inventions unit a hands on disassembly of an everyday object, for a Mission to Mars unit a classroom transformed into a control room. The entry point is followed by a knowledge harvest, in which the teacher records what the class already knows about the theme, then the unit moves through the subject strands across the weeks. A geography lesson covers the regions where the theme is rooted, a history lesson covers how it developed, a science lesson the underlying mechanism, an art lesson a related skill, and a technology lesson a related product or process. The unit closes with an exit point, an event that brings the learning together and is often shared with parents.

This thematic structure is the most distinctive feature of the IPC. Subjects are taught in connected blocks rather than as separate hours per week. A child studying the Chocolate unit is doing geography, history, science and art at the same time, all on chocolate. Proponents argue that this connected style improves retention and motivation. Critics argue that it can dilute subject specific skill development, particularly in mathematics and English (which the IPC explicitly does not cover in depth and which schools usually deliver through a separate scheme alongside the IPC).

Mileposts and age groups

The IPC organises learning into three mileposts. Milepost 1 covers ages 5 to 7, equivalent to UK Key Stage 1 and US Kindergarten to Grade 2. Milepost 2 covers ages 7 to 9, equivalent to lower Key Stage 2 and Grade 3 to 4. Milepost 3 covers ages 9 to 12, equivalent to upper Key Stage 2 and Grade 5 to 6. Each milepost has its own set of learning goals across the subject strands. A unit on water in Milepost 1 will look at where water comes from at home, the same unit in Milepost 3 will look at the global water cycle, river systems and water scarcity. The same theme can run across all three mileposts at different schools and produce age appropriate work in each.

For early years, the IPC sits alongside the International Early Years Curriculum (IEYC), also from Fieldwork Education, which covers ages 2 to 5. Many IPC schools start with IEYC at preschool and reception, transition to IPC at Year 1 or Grade 1, and continue with IPC through Year 6 or Grade 6. Some schools then transition into the IB Middle Years Programme (MYP) or the Cambridge Lower Secondary programme at Year 7. See our broader piece on MYP versus Cambridge Lower Secondary for the next stage decision.

Subjects and learning goals

The IPC covers nine subject strands across its units: science, history, geography, technology, music, art, society, physical education, and international. The international strand is the most distinctive: every unit includes a learning thread on how the topic looks across different countries and cultures, designed to build a global outlook in pupils who are often themselves global by family circumstance. Mathematics and English are deliberately not covered by the IPC and are taught alongside it through a separate scheme, most commonly the host country curriculum (British, American or otherwise) or a dedicated maths and literacy programme.

The learning goals are clear and published. At Milepost 1, a science goal might read "to know that materials have different properties and to be able to sort everyday objects by material". At Milepost 3 the equivalent goal might read "to be able to investigate how the properties of materials affect their use". The goals are specific enough to plan lessons against and broad enough to allow teachers latitude on how they deliver them. The IPC publishes a full set of goals for every unit on its school portal, and parents at IPC schools can ask to see the goals for the units their child is studying that term.

Assessment in the IPC

IPC assessment is intentionally lighter than the assessment regime in a British or American primary curriculum. There is no external testing built into the IPC at any milepost. Schools assess pupils against the published learning goals through teacher observation, pupil portfolios, and end of unit assessment tasks. The IPC publishes assessment rubrics for each milepost across knowledge, skills and understanding, and teachers report against these to parents at the end of each term.

The absence of standardised testing is a feature, not a bug. The IPC is designed for international schools whose pupils transfer frequently between countries, where standardised testing at a national level would be hard to interpret and where rigid testing of younger children is widely seen as developmentally inappropriate. Schools that want more rigorous external assessment usually layer on a separate testing regime: ISA (International Schools Assessment), MAP (Measures of Academic Progress), or the Cambridge Primary Checkpoint at the end of the programme. Parents looking for harder benchmarking at primary level should ask what additional testing the school runs alongside the IPC.

IPC compared with PYP, British and American primary

The IPC competes most directly with the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (PYP), the British primary curriculum (Foundation Stage and Key Stages 1 and 2), and the American elementary curriculum (Kindergarten through Grade 5). Each has a different design philosophy and a different assessment style.

The IPC is often a comfortable middle ground for families who want a recognisably structured programme but with the international and thematic flavour that suits a mobile family life. For a stronger conceptual emphasis the PYP usually goes further; for a more traditional subject by subject delivery the British or American primary curriculum usually goes further. Our British curriculum explained and American curriculum at international schools pieces cover those frameworks in detail. The IB curriculum explained piece covers the PYP alongside the rest of the IB programme.

Which families it suits

The IPC suits families that expect to move countries during primary years, who value an international rather than a single national flavour, and who are comfortable with assessment that is teacher led rather than externally tested. The IPC moves cleanly between countries because its content is not anchored in any single national context. A child who has studied the Chocolate unit in Bangkok will recognise it when they meet the same unit in Lisbon, and the international strand in every unit means they will already be used to thinking across borders.

The IPC is less obvious a fit for families whose children will return to a national school system at the end of primary and need to slot into the national assessment regime there. A child returning to the UK at Year 6 will not have completed Key Stage 2 SATs and may need transition work in the year of return. A child returning to the US system may face the same with state testing. These transitions are routine and most secondary schools in both systems are used to receiving IPC pupils, but parents on a clear return path should weigh the question of which curriculum the child will end up in. Our piece on switching international schools covers transitions in more detail.

Choosing an IPC school

When shopping for an IPC school, parents should ask four questions on tour. First, which mathematics and English programme runs alongside the IPC. Second, how the school assesses pupils against IPC goals and whether it adds external testing (MAP, ISA, Cambridge Primary Checkpoint). Third, how the school plans transition into secondary. Fourth, how stable the teaching staff is, since the IPC depends heavily on teacher judgement.

The IPC is delivered across all the major international networks: Nord Anglia, Cognita, GEMS, ISP and large independents. Quality varies more by school than by network. Parents should weight school reputation, faculty stability and outcomes above the curriculum label. Our broader how to choose an international school guide covers the wider decision frame.

Related guides

• IB curriculum explained, PYP through Diploma
• MYP versus Cambridge Lower Secondary
• British curriculum explained

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