PYP Exhibition: Student Agency in Practice

Student Agency in the PYP Exhibition: Practical Examples

A PYP Exhibition can look impressive and still leave one important question unanswered: who actually led the learning?

Students may stand beside polished displays and confidently deliver rehearsed presentations, yet the topic may have been chosen by the teacher, the lines of inquiry written by the coordinator and the action suggested by a mentor. In that situation, students are presenting the Exhibition, but they are not necessarily leading it.

For the complete process, timeline and teacher planning framework, read our PYP Exhibition guide to building student-led agency.

This article focuses on the decisions teachers can observe in the classroom: how students choose, question, justify, revise, reflect and act during the inquiry.

What does student agency mean in the PYP Exhibition?

The International Baccalaureate places learner agency at the centre of the PYP. It describes learners as active partners in the learning process and the Exhibition as an authentic opportunity to explore, document and share an issue or opportunity of personal significance. That makes agency part of the learning process, not simply a feature of the final presentation. Read the IB description of the PYP learner and Exhibition.

In practice, student agency is visible when learners have meaningful voice, choice and ownership. They can explain:

1. What they decided
2. Why they made that decision
3. What evidence influenced them
4. What changed after feedback or reflection
5. What they plan to do next

A choice is not meaningful merely because a student selected from a teacher-made list. Genuine choice changes the direction of the inquiry and asks the learner to accept responsibility for the result.

What genuine student choice looks like

Consider a group interested in food waste.

In a teacher-controlled inquiry, the teacher assigns food waste, provides three websites, writes the central idea and asks students to create awareness posters.

In a student-owned inquiry, learners notice discarded food in the canteen, collect initial observations, compare possible causes and decide to investigate portion sizes. They select interviews and waste measurements as useful evidence. After analysing the results, they replace their original poster idea with a small portion-choice trial.

The second example still involves adult guidance. The difference is that students make consequential decisions and can trace those decisions back to evidence.

Teachers can test whether a choice is genuine by asking:

If the student chose differently, would the inquiry meaningfully change?

If the answer is no, the choice may be decorative rather than substantive.

Teacher-controlled, shared and student-owned decisions

Student-led does not mean student alone. Some decisions must remain with adults, while others are strongest when negotiated. Making these boundaries explicit prevents both over-control and false independence.

Adult responsibility	Shared decision	Student ownership
Safeguarding, privacy and consent	Group agreements and roles	Issue or opportunity to explore
School policy and non-negotiable deadlines	Central idea wording	Initial questions and priorities
Budget and access to external visitors	Success criteria	Evidence to pursue or reject
Ethical use of interviews, surveys and media	Checkpoints and feedback routines	Presentation format within agreed limits
Academic integrity expectations	When additional support is needed	Action arising from the inquiry

The exact boundary will vary by age, readiness and school context. The important point is that students know which decisions are theirs, which are collaborative and which are non-negotiable.

Help students choose lines of inquiry without writing them for them

Lines of inquiry often become adult-owned because teachers want them to sound conceptually precise. A better approach is to improve the quality of student thinking before refining the language.

Try this classroom sequence:

1. Ask every student to write questions independently.
2. Group similar questions without rewriting them.
3. Label each cluster with the idea it explores, such as causes, perspectives, systems, consequences or change.
4. Ask students which clusters are essential and which are merely interesting.
5. Let the group draft one broad line of inquiry for each chosen cluster.
6. Refine the wording together while checking that students still recognise their thinking.

For a food waste inquiry, students might generate these questions:

• Why do students leave food?
• Who decides portion sizes?
• Which food is discarded most often?
• What happens to discarded food?
• What have other schools tried?

Students may organise those questions into three lines of inquiry:

1. Patterns and causes of food waste in the school
2. Environmental and financial effects of discarded food
3. Changes that could reduce waste in the canteen

Before approving the wording, ask one student to explain how each line grew from the groups original questions. If the explanation depends on the teacher, ownership has probably been lost during editing.

Co-create success criteria with students

When teachers present a finished rubric at the end of the process, students receive assessment rather than use it. Co-created success criteria make quality visible early enough to guide decisions.

Begin by showing two short, anonymised examples of Exhibition work. Ask students what makes one inquiry more convincing, responsible or useful than the other. Convert their observations into criteria and then add any essential school or programme expectations.

The finished criteria might include:

Area	Co-created success criterion
Inquiry	Our questions became more focused as we learned.
Evidence	We used relevant sources and explained why we trusted them.
Perspectives	We included people affected by the issue, not only sources that agreed with us.
Collaboration	We recorded important group decisions and individual contributions.
Reflection	We showed what changed in our thinking and why.
Action	Our response followed from evidence rather than from a pre-selected activity.
Communication	Our chosen format helps the intended audience understand and respond.

Keep the criteria accessible during mentor meetings. Students should be able to use them to identify their next step instead of waiting for an adult to tell them what is missing.

Make mentor meetings student-led

A mentor meeting can appear collaborative while still being controlled by the adult. If the mentor opens the notes, reviews every task and assigns the next steps, the student is reporting to a manager.

Give students a repeatable meeting agenda instead:

1. Our goal: What were we trying to complete?
2. Our evidence: What did we find, create or test?
3. Our decision: What did we decide and why?
4. Our obstacle: Where are we stuck?
5. Our request: What feedback or access do we need?
6. Our next step: What will we do before the next meeting?

The mentor listens, questions assumptions and helps students recognise risks. Useful prompts include:

• What evidence supports that conclusion?
• Whose perspective is missing?
• What options did you consider?
• What would happen if you changed this decision?
• Which success criterion needs the most attention now?
• What will you do if this plan does not work?

A practical test for mentor support is simple:

If the mentor were unavailable tomorrow, would the students still know what to do next?

If not, the meeting may have produced compliance rather than independence.

Record decisions, not only completed tasks

Task lists show what students did. They do not show who made the decisions or how thinking changed. A simple decision log creates stronger evidence of agency.

Date	Decision	Options considered	Evidence or reason	Who decided?	What happens next?
12 Feb	Measure plate waste for five days	Survey, interview, measurement	We need evidence of what is wasted, not only opinions	Student group	Agree categories and seek canteen consent

Reflection prompts should also move beyond “What did you do today?” Ask:

• Which decision are you most confident about? Why?
• What new evidence changed your thinking?
• What did your group disagree about, and how did you resolve it?
• Where did an adult influence your decision?
• What would you choose differently next time?
• What is your next question?

These records make the learning visible even when the final product is simple. They also help teachers distinguish a polished adult-supported outcome from genuine student ownership.

Move from research to meaningful action

Action should grow from understanding. Asking students to select an action before they have gathered evidence often produces predictable posters, assemblies or donation drives that may have little connection to the inquiry.

Use this progression:

Finding - interpretation - audience - response - evidence of impact

For example:

• Finding: Waste measurements show that large portions of two lunch items are repeatedly discarded.
• Interpretation: Portion choice may matter more than awareness.
• Audience: Canteen staff and students who buy lunch.
• Response: Test small and regular portion options for two weeks.
• Evidence of impact: Compare waste weights and student feedback before and during the trial.

Meaningful action does not need to be large or public. It may be a changed habit, a tested classroom solution, a recommendation to a decision maker or a commitment to continue the inquiry. The strongest action is not the most impressive one. It is the one students can justify with evidence.

Weak, developing and strong student agency

Agency is a continuum. The purpose of observation is not to label students, but to decide what support will help them take greater ownership next.

Aspect	Weak agency	Developing agency	Strong agency
Topic choice	Selects from a narrow teacher list without explanation	Chooses from broad provocations and gives a personal reason	Identifies an issue, tests its significance and negotiates a workable scope
Lines of inquiry	Uses adult-written lines	Contributes questions but relies on adults to organise them	Groups, prioritises and refines questions with guidance
Research	Completes assigned sources	Chooses some sources but needs help judging relevance	Selects, compares and rejects evidence with reasons
Mentor meeting	Waits for tasks	Reports progress and suggests a next step	Leads the agenda, requests targeted feedback and records decisions
Reflection	Lists completed activities	Describes a challenge or change	Connects evidence, decisions, feedback and changes in thinking
Action	Completes a pre-selected product	Chooses an action related to the topic	Designs or adapts action in response to research and evaluates its effect

A learner may show strong agency in topic choice and still need support with research or collaboration. Observe each dimension separately.

Teacher observation checklist

Use this checklist during classroom work and mentor meetings, not only before the final Exhibition.

Voice and choice

• Students can explain why the issue matters to them or their community.
• Their choices can meaningfully change the direction of the inquiry.
• Students helped shape the central idea or lines of inquiry.

Decision making

• Students compare options before choosing a source, method, format or action.
• Important decisions and reasons are recorded.
• Students can identify which decisions were theirs, shared or adult-owned.

Research and reflection

• Students decide which evidence is relevant rather than collecting everything they find.
• They notice missing perspectives and question reliability.
• Reflections show changes in thinking, not only completed tasks.

Collaboration and mentoring

• Students lead mentor meetings and request specific support.
• Every learner can describe an individual contribution.
• Adults use questions and feedback more often than instructions.

Action

• The action emerged from findings rather than being chosen at the beginning.
• Students can explain who the action is for and what it is intended to change.
• Students gather evidence of response, learning or impact.

Repeated no answers do not automatically mean students are unmotivated. They may show that the structure gives adults too many of the consequential decisions.

The goal is visible ownership

A successful PYP Exhibition is not defined by perfect boards, complex vocabulary or flawless presentations. It is visible in students who can explain what they chose, why they chose it, how evidence changed their thinking and what they decided to do.

Teachers remain essential. They establish safe boundaries, teach research skills, provide feedback and make high-quality inquiry possible. Their support is most effective when it leaves students more capable of leading the next decision.

Koncepts helps IB educators organise planning, inquiry, assessment and reflection in one workspace, making student thinking easier to document without taking ownership away from the learner.

Explore Koncepts for IB teaching and planning

References and further reading

1. International Baccalaureate: The PYP learner
2. International Baccalaureate: Primary Years Programme
3. Koncepts LinkedIn post on student agency in the PYP Exhibition