Memorandum submitted by Paula Cummings, Head teacher, Cambo First School, Northumberland

 

 

'In my ideal school we will no longer be treated like herds of an identical animal waiting to be civilised before we are let loose on the world, it is recognised that this is our world too!,

 

We are preparing our children at Cambo First School for the future. 80% of the jobs for the future do not even exist at present this is due to the rate of technological change. We must therefore look at the fundamentals especially as today's children are so different to us! Children today are:

 

· Media dominated

· Fashion and image concentric

· Able to use and develop instant communications

· Aware of global interaction and accelerating change

 

Multi layers of phenomenal change. Therefore children need a curriculum which focuses on communication, flexibility, knowledge, self worth and risk taking.

 

To meet these varying needs our systems and approaches must meet that challenge. We have adopted a gardening ideology whereby we create the climate and conditions for our children to grow. A whole school creative curriculum based on skills, attributes and one which addresses the ECM outcomes is essential to this development. We also believe that our children must have a voice when deciding any curricular area. We are looking for aspirational development! Our children deserve it, as does the community.

 

We are devising with the whole school community a child led curriculum which focuses on the six ELG areas across the whole school and federation.

 

With the support of Creative Partnerships we have developed two projects so far across our school and federation these have been paramount in developing all of the aforementioned.

 

The areas covered were:

 

· Growth and Change. The children worked with leading artists like Mervin Thomas [African drumming], Garner Harris [dance], and Corinne Lewis [photography and digital imaging] to develop this curriculum extravaganza. The aforementioned was the stimuli which no planning could have anticipated! We ended up with a music and dance festival and a drama production for the whole community on several nights! These events were all planned and carried out by the children.

 

· Medieval Pilgrimage

The children worked with creative in residence Margaret Watchorn to develop this multi layered approach to learning. This was truly a child centred and led topic involving living history actors, artists, story tellers etc and culminated at a medieval pageant where all of the learning areas came together e.g. you can't go to a pageant without appropriate clothing, invites, music, dance etc. The children worked collaboratively via a creative MANTLE approach to develop the theme. It was a brilliant real experience!

 

 

Without Creative Partnerships I wonder whether we could have achieved as much as we have so far? We have a long way to go but the future, our future is looking brilliant.

 

 

June 2007