Memorandum submitted by Mathilda Marie Joubert, Director of Softnotes Limited and Dr. Dorothy Faulkner, Senior Lecturer at the Open University Centre for Childhood, Development and Learning
Executive Summary
i. This is a personal submission by Mathilda Marie Joubert, Director of Softnotes Limited and Dr. Dorothy Faulkner, Senior Lecturer at the Open University Centre for Childhood, Development and Learning. Our response has been informed in particular by a series of recent evidence based work we conducted jointly in the field of creativity and education.
ii. Our work has been guided significantly by the democratic NACCCE definition of creativity ("Imaginative activity, fashioned so as to produce outcomes that are both original and of value"), and Joubert's definition: "Creativity is the application of independent original thinking." This definition emphasises the fact that creativity is a thinking process, not a product, it involves originality, it can be a collective or solitary act, but it requires independent thinking abilities.
iii. We believe that creative thinking practices can manifest themselves in any disciplinary field, e.g. maths, science, geography, just as it can be absent in any discipline. The arts are not by default creative, just as the other subject disciplines are not by default uncreative. Our work shows that creative teaching and learning is motivating and engaging and motivates children in all areas of learning, not only the arts subjects.
iv. Creative learning offers young people co-ownership enjoyment and autonomy within a structured framework. It is also a highly effective way to deliver personalised learning by tapping into the unique creative abilities of different individuals in the classroom,
v. If we want to guarantee creative learning experiences for young people we have to balance the discipline of acquiring knowledge and skills with the freedom to experiment and innovate with them.
vi. If the impact of creative learning is to be sustained across a school, teachers also require a deeper understanding of the principles of creative learning not just having a creative curriculum.
vii. If we want a curriculum shift in favour of creativity to be successful and not just superficial, we will need to invest significantly in training of teachers, head teachers and cultural animators who work in education settings. Real authentic and experiential opportunities to practice creative approaches to teaching, learning, facilitating, leading and managing people, organisations and situations have to be at the heart of training for creativity and will need to engage these already, highly experienced learners in the kind of profound learning opportunities that can only be achieved through a personal engagement with the learning material, involving significant reflection from the learner about the personal applications and implications of the new learning.
viii. Continued professional development in training for creativity is most effective when delivered at a whole school level. Embedding creativity across a school does not happen overnight; it requires a sustained process of development that depends on wholehearted senior management endorsement which should not be delegated or departmentalized. It needs to be prioritised within the School Development/Improvement Plan and a climate as well as systems that enable creative learning should be established and maintained.
ix. Training for cultural animators (or creative practitioners), experience developing and delivering the Advanced Skills Creatives (ASC) course has shown that a crucial element is to train creative practitioners to facilitate creative learning opportunities for teachers and pupils, not replace their creative thinking by doing the thinking for them.
x. In our view all industries need employees who are capable of applying independent original thinking and Joubert's work in industry would certainly verify this. There is no need for a special case to be made for the needs of the so-called creative industries. We believe that a very specific link between creative learning and the creative industries will narrow the appeal and the impact of the creative learning agenda. All businesses need employees with the ability to develop creative ideas and remedial training often has to be done on the job if young people are not taught to think creatively at school.
xi. When teachers are trained in creative thinking practices, our evidence shows that there are positive benefits in relation to: management practice within the school; the teaching of children with special needs; staff relationships; the culture and ethos of school; teacher-pupil relationships.
xii. Where children and young people are trained in creative thinking practices, there are significant benefits in terms of self-esteem, communicative skills; confidence; motivation; engagement in, understanding of and responsibility for their own learning; collaborative team work and pupil-teacher relationships. Young people need support and/or encouragement to articulate the potential applications of their (creative) learning in order to value it as a life-long skill that will prepare them for the real word of work.
xiii. There is still a current weakness in terms of assessing progression in terms of the creative achievement of young people. A framework for assessing progression in terms of creative learning should looking at progression of the creative thinking process, not product outcomes, and one that could be applied across different subjects and contexts and across all age ranges.
xiv. Creative learning contributes to the raising of standards of achievement and attainment, it makes learning more enjoyable and engaging, it develops a range of personal and social skills of young people, e.g. confidence and self-esteem and it helps to prepare young people for the world of work. To enable a system-wide shift towards creative learning would require an investment in training across the teaching profession as well as the development of some structures that can ensure rigorous and purposeful creativity, rather than ad-hoc accidental creativity. To this end we make four specific recommendations to the Committee:
· We recommend training in creativity, not merely training about creativity during initial teacher training, continued professional development, headship training and in training for cultural animators who wish to work in schools. · We recommend that a framework for assessing progression in terms of creative learning should be developed, containing descriptors of different stages of creative development. · We recommend that the work of creative agents in schools should be encouraged and supported to enable the embedding of creative learning practices across schools. · We recommend that creative learning should be adequately resourced in terms of time for training, time to develop more creative curricula and time to embed the philosophy of creative learning across schools to lead to whole-scale organisational change.
Submitters:
1. This is a personal submission by Mathilda Marie Joubert and Dorothy Faulkner. Some background information on the two submitters, which should indicate their credibility in the field of creativity and education, follows below.
2. Mathilda Marie Joubert, Director of Softnotes Limited, is an independent consultant, researcher and trainer in creativity, innovation, organisational development and the management of change. She works nationally and internationally with organisations from across the business, arts, education and voluntary sectors, including Balfour Beatty Capital, the BBC, Creative Partnerships, the Department for Culture, Media and Sports (DCMS), the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), Diageo, the National College for School Leadership, Philips, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce and Unilever. She is an Associate Partner in Innovation to the business creativity consultancy firm Synectics and also works closely with The Open University where she is research associate in psychology, researching the social processes underlying collaborative creativity both in education and business contexts. Her five degrees includes a Masters in Arts Education, a Masters in Cognitive Neuropsychology and a Masters of Business Administration.
3. After teaching in primary, secondary and higher education, Mathilda Joubert was Research Fellow at Warwick University for the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education (NACCCE) co-author of their report All Our Futures: Creativity and Culture in Education (NACCCE, 1999), which was commissioned by the DfES and the DCMS and contributed significantly to the establishment of Creative Partnerships. She is author of Challenging Convention: Creativity in Organisations (2002), which explored organisational creativity across 20 different industries, including engineering, advertising and education. She works with primary, middle and secondary schools across the country (both within and outside of Creative Partnerships areas) on developing creative curricula and has worked with the National College for School Leadership on a long-term project to explore Creative Leadership applications. She has been a course developer (with Gerri Moriarty and Geoff White) of the Advanced Skills Creatives (ASC) training course run by Creative Partnerships Merseyside and accredited by Liverpool John Moores University and has been a guest lecturer on creativity at the Institute of Education, University of London since 2002. Other work includes projects on Creative Science (Wellcome Trust and DfES), evaluating the NESTA Ignite! Creativity LABs for young people (with Littleton, Miell, Murphy, Vass and Whitelock of The Open University), a research exploration of the creative strategies employed by creative agents working in Creative Partnerships London North and (with Valerie Hannon and Prof. Maurice Kogan) conducting research for the DCMS on exploring how research into learning outcomes associated with participation in the arts and sport was linked to government policy and practice of non-departmental public bodies (2001). During the recent Ofsted inspection of Creative Partnerships, HMI suggested Mathilda Joubert should lead a programme of work for Creative Partnerships to investigate the assessment of progression in creativity for young people.
4. Dr. Dorothy Faulkner is a developmental psychologist with specific knowledge of the psychology of creative teaching and learning and of children's collaborative strategies. She is Senior Lecturer at the Open University Centre for Childhood, Development and Learning and was Sub Dean Research in the Faculty of Education and Language Studies from 1999 - 2003. Her DPhil (Oxford) thesis (Board of Psychological Studies, 1983) was entitled An investigation concerning the development of organisation in semantic memory and in her current position at The Open University she is a member of the Educational Dialogue Research Unit in the Centre for Research in Education and Educational Technology. This group has a track record of research in collaborative learning and creativity in primary education. An edited collection (Miell, Littleton & Faulkner), Learning to Collaborate: Collaborating to Learn, (Nova Scientific Publishers) was published in 2005 and in 2005, Faulkner was invited to lead a workshop on Creativity and Cultural Innovation in Early Years Education at the International Conference of Early Years Education, University of Warwick. She guest edited a special issue of the International Journal of Early Years Education: Creative and Cultural Innovation in Early Years Education (October 2006). She is a member of the OU Children's Research Centre (CRC) training and research team, which facilitates young people's research. She was guest reviewer for 'Creativity and Education', special issue of the Cambridge Journal of Education, 2006 and is a founder member of the Editorial Board (since 1993) and Review Editor for International Journal of Early Years Education. Faulkner and Bragg (Open University) has just secured a research grant from Creative Partnerships for a project called Youth Voice in the Work of Creative Partnerships.
5. Our response has been informed in particular by a series of recent evidence based work we conducted jointly in the field of creativity and education that enables us to present direct quotations from the teachers, students and creative practitioners involved:
· An evaluation carried out by a team of researchers from the Open University working in collaboration with Synectics Education Initiative (SEI) of the project Excellence Creativity and Innovation in Teacher Education (EXCITE! Phases I and II) funded by the DfES, the Esmee Fairburn Foundation and Creative Partnerships; [1] · An evaluation of the Student Voice Project[2] initiated and funded by Creative Partnerships Merseyside where a cohort of students were trained as pupil researchers to explore the impact of creative teaching and learning practices in their schools. This work was reported as 'Children and young people as active researchers: Empowering learner's voice' at the British Psychological Society- Psychology of Education Section Conference, November 2006. · Acting as research mentors and advisors to teachers and creative practitioners participating in the CARA (Creativity Action Research Awards) scheme, managed by Cape UK for Creative Partnerships, to bring together classroom teachers, creative practitioners and university researchers to investigate, through creativity based, action research projects, the effect creativity has on pupil learning and motivation.[3] · Funding was secured from Creative Partnerships for a project to investigate the impact of Creative Partnerships in Norfolk, but the project was stopped when Creative Partnerships Norfolk was closed down.
Introduction:
6. Our work shows that creative teaching and learning is motivating and engaging and motivates children in all areas of learning, not only the arts subjects, e.g. as is evident from this quote of a literacy project at a school in Norwich: "The CARA project succeeded in engaging children of all abilities and interests. The level of concentration during sessions was impressive and all those involved - both pupils and staff - grew noticeably in confidence as the weeks progressed. The art focus was hugely successful in stimulating creative writing whilst the children's ability to evaluate their experiences also developed significantly. I am in no doubt that the methodology developed during this project will inform and guide teaching and learning at Heartsease First School for many years to come and will also have long-lasting effects on all the individual participants." We don't see creative learning as a distraction from the 'proper' work, but as an enabling approach to do the 'proper' work better. We believe that if learning is not enjoyable, children often don't engage and thus won't progress. Creative learning can reverse this cycle by giving young people co-ownership enjoyment and autonomy within a structured framework. It is also a highly effective way to deliver personalised learning by tapping into the unique creative abilities of different individuals in the classroom, which is possible when young people are given the structure and freedom to co-develop and co-own the learning experiences.
Defining Creativity:
7. Our work has been guided significantly by the democratic NACCCE definition[4] of creativity ("Imaginative activity, fashioned so as to produce outcomes that are both original and of value"), emphasising that it is a process (not product) that involves originality, value and purpose. Creativity is therefore not only or always in the arts, it is not only for some creative geniuses, but for all and it is not only about freedom without discipline, but requires a fine balance between these two. The NACCCE distinction between teaching creatively (teacher creativity) and teaching for creativity (pupil creativity, which leads to learning for creativity) is also often cited in our work.
8. In her work with schools, Joubert has also developed a short-hand definition for creativity, which seems to communicate well to teachers: "Creativity is the application of independent original thinking." This definition emphasises the fact that creativity is a thinking process, not a product, it involves originality, it can be a collective or solitary act, but it requires independent thinking abilities, i.e. not relying on the teacher or others to do the thinking for you and it involves the ability to apply one's thinking to different contexts.
9. Another definitional factor which Joubert highlights is that creativity without purpose is eccentricity. Creative learning is therefore not just fun for the sake of it; it is an engaging approach to learning with the clear purpose of enhancing learning - not detracting from it. This can be enabled if the right balance between discipline and freedom is present in the creative work. Some may think that creativity involves boundless freedom, but we believe boundless freedom leads to chaos or anarchy, not necessarily creativity. Sometimes one may find accidental creativity in anarchy, but not guaranteed creativity - and that is not good enough for education. If we want to guarantee creative learning experiences for young people we have to balance the discipline of acquiring knowledge and skills with the freedom to experiment and innovate with them. This same principle of balance is evident in the work of many creative practitioners and in business training in creativity, e.g. Synectics.
The effect of existing creative initiatives on teachers' skills:
10. Our response to this question is informed by our involvement in the specific creative teaching and learning projects and initiatives listed in paragraph 5 above.
EXCITE!
11. The work carried out for the first phase of the project Excellence, Creativity and Innovation in Teaching and Education (EXCITE!) was designed to answer the research question 'How far and in what ways does a particular programme of creativity training previously developed in a business context transfer to the settings of primary and secondary schools?' The creativity training programme was developed by Synectics Education Initiative (SEI), an educational charity, registered in the UK, whose mission is to promote the teaching and application of creativity throughout the formal education system. Twenty-eight teachers from Bracknell Forest, Merseyside, Norfolk and Staffordshire and two local education authority advisers were trained in Synectics creativity techniques by experienced Synectics trainers. The format and content of the four-day creativity training programme covered three themed areas: creative climates, creative thinking tools and creative process strategies. These training techniques were specially adapted for educational contexts. Full details of the training process and content are given in the 2004 report.
12. The evaluation of EXCITE! Phase I revealed that participants' attitudes to the training were shaped by complex interrelationships between local structure and cultural factors (within and between schools) and by teachers' career stage, age and subject affiliations. Despite this complexity it was clear that creativity training such as the Synectics programme had significant potential for teacher training and continuing professional development (CPD). In general the majority of participants felt that understanding how to create a positive and sustainable creative climate, along with using Synectics creative thinking tools and could be of use to all teachers in lesson and curriculum planning directed towards 'teaching creatively' and 'teaching for creativity', (NACCCE, 1999). The evaluation also revealed that the creative process strategies, had relevance for senior school management teams and leadership and management training.
13. Following on from these findings EXCITE! Phase II explored the recommendation that whole school training specifically tailored to trainees' school and classroom context might be an optimum delivery model for Synectics creativity training. The Phase II evaluation was an in-depth, longitudinal case-study study carried out by members of the Open University research team working with the head teacher and all staff (including administrative and technical staff) of a primary school in a small market town in Norfolk during the 2004-2005 school year. The school received funding from Creative Partnerships to buy in the training for its staff.
14. Although the questionnaire and interview data from this study revealed a wide range of views about the possible classroom applications of Synectics creativity training, the members of staff interviewed were very aware of the positive contribution it had made. The evaluation revealed that a whole school training model of delivery was a cost-effective method of delivery and that the training had had a significant impact on teaching and learning across most curriculum areas in the school. Teachers' initial concerns about the applicability of the programme to classroom teaching reduced significantly and their attitudes towards teaching for creativity developed and changed over the year. In general the evaluation revealed that for teachers and learning support assistants the training had a positive benefit on:
· staff relationships and team working; · the conduct and management of staff meetings; · curriculum planning; · members of staff's sense of empowerment; · their facilitation skills; · their understanding of the value of crediting and building on each others' ideas; · their ability to model crediting behaviour for pupils; · teacher-learner relationships.
We have found that what has developed is that there is more creative opportunity, both from the teachers and from the children, which is a motivator which I think spurs people on, which I think makes the children more engaged, more interested and the staff too. (Head Teacher, EXCITE! PHASEII)
15. Building on the success of the EXCITE! Projects, SEI are developing a Teachers' Online Creativity Manual which will be available to all teachers with an interest in creativity. It will present EXCITE! materials in a modular form accessible to teachers who have not been able to attend EXCITE! training courses.
The Student Voice Project
16. This project evaluated the effectiveness of training two teams of students, teachers and creative practitioners in systematic research methods so that they could design action research projects to investigate:
Ø the nature and extent of creative teaching and learning in their schools; Ø the students' views on and experiences of creative learning and teaching; Ø the impact of Creative Partnerships initiatives on students' engagement with and enjoyment of the curriculum.
17. Creative Partnerships Merseyside's purpose in initiating the 'Student Voice' project was to find ways of harnessing the power of student voice to inform their own planning. They also wanted to further promote creative learning and learning for creativity across their schools in ways that are genuinely meaningful and relevant to all partners: students and their families, teachers and creative practitioners. They drew on research carried out at the Open University by Kellett (2005)[5] that has demonstrated that engaging children as active researchers is a powerful way of soliciting 'pupil voice' in order to finding out what they really think about their educational experiences. Six, Year 5 students from a primary school, six, Year 7 students from a community college, two creative practitioners and two members of teaching staff from each school were involved in the project. All members of the research team received training and on-going support in social science research methods and analysis by Dorothy Faulkner and Mathilda Joubert. Teams also participated in initial awareness raising sessions to facilitate their understanding of the meaning of creativity and creative teaching and learning. The project took place during the 2006 spring and summer terms. The following reflections from the two creative practitioners involved illustrate the impact it had on thinking about ways of working with teachers and students:
I often go into projects expecting to know more than the children and knowing what was going to happen, but in this project I didn't. I've learnt as much as the children - if not more - and this will make a difference to how I work in future.
[I've learnt about] the changing balance between teachers and children and creatives and children - realising what we all have to give over more to the children. This can only be a positive way forward for education.
Creative learning is about asking questions.
18. The Student Voice project also changed how the teachers involved thought about their own practice and ways of working with students and creative practitioners:
The importance of Creative Partnerships was really important to the success of this project. Creativity without partnership may at best be eccentric, but not purposeful and partnership without creativity is dull. But put it together in the right way and you get something really exciting (Teacher)
The saddest thing is that teachers think poor behaviour stops them being creative. (Deputy Head)
[I've learnt] how eloquent and confident students can be given the right environment and setting. (Teacher)
I've learnt a lot about what helps and hinders lessons from being creative. (Deputy)
[This project will] Encourage us to include students more in strategic plans and future direction of creative teaching and learning. (Head and Teacher)
19. Finally we offer evidence from our experience as research mentors supporting teachers and creative practitioners involved in CARA projects. The first project was designed to investigate whether working with a visual artist could enhance creativity across the setting by supporting staff both individually and collectively. The following extract is drawn from the final project report written by the teacher and creative practitioner who carried out the research[6]:
Ø The relationship between school and artist initially conceived as 'peer coach' changed to that of 'creative friend' and mentor. Ø Feedback from staff has been extremely positive and has led to a new understanding of how dialogue between creative practitioner and staff can create mutual CPD opportunities. Ø The involvement of the creative practitioner has created more opportunities for dialogue and has suggested a new working model for our continuing collaboration. Ø Our engagement with the action research process has allowed us to pilot new ways for staff and creative practitioner to work together to develop workshops for parents and children next year.
20. In another CARA project at a school in Norwich the symbiotic relationship between the teacher and creative practitioner meant that both developed their practice significantly through working in partnership, e.g. as is evident from this quote by the creative practitioner:
I became more acutely aware of the similarities and the differences in practices between Teachers and Creative Practitioners. Most crucially I learnt that a dialogic learning, or questions-led process cannot suddenly emerge from children who are used to following an answer-led process. The capacity of the children to 'wonder out loud' and question has to be built gradually. (Creative Practitioner, CARA project)
The Implications of a Curriculum Shift in Favour of Creativity for the Training of Heads, Teachers and Cultural Animators:
21. The educationist John West-Burnham defines 3 different levels of learning: · surface learning, which involves the mere transmission of knowledge; · deep learning, which can be achieved through an experiential engagement with the learning content; and · profound learning, which can only be achieved through a personal engagement with the learning material, involving significant reflection from the learner about the personal applications and implications of the new learning. This is the only level if learning which can result in behaviour change.
22. If we want a curriculum shift in favour of creativity to be successful and not just superficial, we will need to invest significantly in training of teachers, head teachers and cultural animators who work in education settings that engages these learners in profound learning opportunities. Creativity can be hard work. It is a rigorous process that has to be sustained through a process of growth and can therefore not be achieved in just half a twilight INSET session. It is a developmental process that has to be honed through continuous disciplined practice: "The difficulty is that creative teaching cannot be added onto practice, it can only be developed through the experience of risk taking, intuition, failure, reflection etc." (Creative practitioner in CARA project at Heartsease school, Norwich).
23. Real authentic and experiential opportunities to practice creative approaches to teaching, learning, facilitating, leading and managing people, organisations and situations have to be at the heart of training for creativity. Creativity is a bit like sport: you have to flex the muscles to get better at it and the muscles will atrophy if they are not used. We believe that for the adults working in education to effectively encourage and facilitate learning for creativity they have to have an in-depth personal understanding of the topic. It is not enough to have a theoretical understanding of the concept of creativity; only experiential engagement which encourages reflection on practice will lead to profound learning: "The most important outcome of this training so far for me has been a greater understanding of myself and the re-emergence of the belief that learning should be an enjoyable experience for the whole school community" (Head teacher in EXCITE! Phase II). We therefore recommend training in creativity, not merely training about creativity during initial teacher training, continued professional development, headship training and in training for cultural animators who wish to work in schools.
24. We believe that training for head teachers is most effective if the balance between structure and ideas is emphasised. Joubert's work on organisational creativity [7] and with the NCSL[8] has shown that to lead an organisation effectively through a process of change management towards a creative curriculum necessitates a systematic and rigorous approach to planning for creativity and developing the appropriate organisational structures to encourage organisational creativity as well as creative ideas. Each of these elements can be developed through appropriate training, e.g. as part of the NPQHT.
25. One crucial element in creativity training for teachers is to encourage their self-belief in their own creative abilities. All teachers (like all young people) have creative potential, but not all teachers believe in or develop this potential. This can create a dangerous dependency culture where some teachers believe they always need others to provide the creative ideas for them (e.g. either creative/cultural animators or consultants or lesson plans from a book). Successful experiential training for teachers can break this dependency culture. Henry Ford said: "Whether you believe you can or you can't, you're probably right." If we can help teachers (and through them young people) to believe in their own creative potential, they will be able to develop and hone their creative abilities.
26. With regard to training for cultural animators (or creative practitioners), experience developing and delivering the Advanced Skills Creatives (ASC) course has shown that a crucial element is to train creative practitioners to facilitate creative learning opportunities for teachers and pupils, not replace their creative thinking by doing the thinking for them. This requires an understanding of the creative process that often goes beyond the disciplinary background of the individual practitioner, which practitioners can gain by un-coding each others' communities of practice. For some creative practitioners this involves a transformation from creative doers to creative thinkers, who can articulate a generic creative practice which is transferable to different contexts (e.g. education) and therefore sustainable.
How might parents and education and care providers be persuaded to encourage creativity in the home?
27. There seems to be an implicit assumption behind this question that creative activity is not encouraged in the home and other out-of-school contexts. We would challenge this assumption and point to numerous recent reports and research studies that provide ample evidence that this is not the case, not least of which is Paul Roberts' report, Nurturing Creativity in Young People and the earlier report All Our Futures, (NACCCE, 1999) [9]. Both of these reports offer detailed recommendations that address this question. Other recent reports and initiatives also offer recommendations about how children's engagement in creative and cultural practices in home and community settings can be taken into account to transform current educational practice and the development of an agenda that actively promotes personalised and life-long learning, (e.g. Futurelab; Fryer, 2004; Green, 2001; Halsey, 2006; the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) programme Ignite!; Sefton-Green, 2004; Somekh, et al., 2002)[10]
Special contribution of the arts to creative education:
28. Our interest has always been in creativity, not the arts. We believe that creative thinking practices can manifest itself in any disciplinary field, e.g. maths, science, geography, just as it can be absent in any discipline. The arts are not by default creative, just as the other subject disciplines are not by default uncreative. Although a lot of creative practice has been documented in the arts and creative practitioners from this field have worked effectively to encourage learning for creativity in schools, we fear that, if a special case is made for the special contribution of the arts to creative education, the arts become a handmaiden to other purposes and it gives the implicit message that other areas of learning are uncreative.
Needs of the creative industries:
29. In our view all industries need employees who are capable of applying independent original thinking and Joubert's work in industry would certainly verify this. We therefore don't see any reason why a special case should be made for the needs of the so-called creative industries, (at expense of the 'non-creative' industries??) If creative learning approaches does lead to more employment in the creative industries that should be regarded as a bonus, not the main aim of creative learning. We believe that a very specific link between creative learning and the creative industries will narrow the appeal and the impact of the creative learning agenda.
What evidence is there that a creative curriculum assists achievement in other areas:
30. The EXCITE! Phase II evaluation detailed above indicated that creativity training can be used to support individual and group learning across the curriculum. Specifically it had an impact:
· during the Literacy hour (KS2) · with 5 - 6 year old children at KS1 · on support work with SEN pupils · in supporting extended ICT projects · in PSHE lessons
31. The creativity training also had a positive effect on:
· Management practice · Staff relationships · The culture and ethos of the school · Teacher-pupil relationships
For us as a school it was about the climate that was created, the positive climate that was created among us as adults, and then how adults can translate that into the classroom [...] People are locked in far more to the idea that creativity is something that can be brought into all aspects of the curriculum. And ways of allowing children to be creative is very much at the forefront of people's planning. (Head)
People are locked in far more to the idea that creativity is something that can be brought into all aspects of the curriculum. And ways of allowing children to be creative is very much at the forefront of people's planning -in terms of their actual delivery. (Head)
What is the impact of a creative curriculum on a) pupil confidence, motivation, behaviour and team work and, b) literacy, numeracy, ICT and communication skills?:
32. The research design for EXCITE! Phase II incorporated video-based, classroom observation of three classes (Year 1, Year 3 and Year 6) at three points during the 2004-2005 school year. All three classes were led by practitioners who were highly skilled in the use of creative and critical thinking techniques and were applying these across all areas of the curriculum. Over the course of the year pupils in these classes demonstrated:
· good collaboration, team working and social skills · learning to learn and learning for understanding/metaknowledge · positive acceptance of each other's contributions in group work contexts · the ability to offer novel and original ideas and problem solutions · the ability to offer constructive criticisms of other's contributions including those of the teacher · a willingness to accept and respond positively to challenges to their own ideas · a willingness to extend each other's ideas · active participation in their own learning and a willingness to question and engage in genuine dialogue with their teachers · high levels of attention and retention · good listening skills and concentration · the ability to engage in extended whole class discussions · good facilitation skills and the ability to report on the outcomes of small group discussions to the whole class · an ability to own, reflect on and evaluate their own learning
33. The action research project, Facilitating story-telling and narrative development through creative partnerships showed that all children made significant progress in their narrative skills (verbal and/or written) and most made progress with story writing skills - up to two levels for some students. It also had an influence on pupil motivation:
· All of the children's attitudes to writing became more positive and their enjoyment of their learning increased · Children of all abilities benefited from the project
34. In addition, practitioners in the school commented that the project had resulted in a number of other learning benefits:
'I was surprised that the children remembered certain information much more than in an ordinary classroom situation'. (Teaching assistant)
'I was surprised that the children were able to write, nobody complained of not knowing what to do'. (Year 3 teacher)
'I was surprised that the children made such progress, this way of teaching creative writing really works with children of all abilities'. (Teaching Assistant).
'I was amazed to see everybody involved most of the time considering the ability and concentration levels of the children'. (Year 3 teacher)
35. It also had an impact on children's confidence as writers and on their attitudes towards themselves and other:
'I was amazed to see how enthusiastic the children became about writing'. (Head teacher)
'The children began to listen and respect each other's ideas and elaborate upon them'. (Project teacher)
'Writing in workbooks is a chore, but this has made writing fun and something she wants to do'.(Parent).
'Listening back she said, 'Wow that was a great story'. After that session there was an improvement in both her attitude and her writing. She became more cooperative with other children'. (Parent)
36. The biggest unexpected outcome was the impact that the Creative Partnerships Merseyside Student Voice project t had on the personal development of young people. The children experienced huge gains in confidence.
I think I've got more confident, 'cause I wouldn't join in, I would just sit there like this (silence) and I don't think adults are scary anymore. (Charley)
I think I've got more confident. Now I don't just hide in a little corner. (Ben)
37. Teachers and parents also picked up on the gains the students made in their levels of confidence:
The changes in the confidence of these children are amazing. The children got so much out of it. Their parents even commented on the difference they saw in them at home. (Teacher)
They have more confidence in speaking to each other and speaking to adults. (Teacher)
At the end they were all volunteering to put their views across. (Teacher)
38. Through the project the students also felt that they had gained 'Skills for life and a job'. Our interviews showed that they felt that many of the research, personal and social skills that they had learnt, practiced or acquired through this project would potentially be skills for life that they could apply in the workplace one day:
39. Children and teachers also reported developments in a range of other personal skills, e.g. resilience, organisation skills and independent working skills. Finally, in common with EXCITE! Phase II, the 'Student Voice' project had a profound impact on the quality of the relationship between teachers, creative practitioners and students:
I've been able to speak to teachers one-on-one, so I've got used to...Well, it's the thing where you'd never like to speak to your headmaster or anything, but now I do. (Student)
I learnt it can work if you hand over control to the children. I've learnt to trust them. (Teacher)
I believe that this project enhanced the personal confidence of every participant and I am glad to have been a part of it. (Creative Practitioner)
How can creative achievement be acknowledged and assessed:
40. MacNamaras Fallacy was highlighted in the NACCCE report[11]: if we don't learn to measure what we value, we end up valuing what we can measure. Some people believe that creativity will be killed if it is assessed, but by not doing so, creative learning will never be valued. To combat this situation, some schools have developed a range of innovative ways to acknowledge and assess creative achievement, e.g. a school in Buckinghamshire has introduced a creative response board in all classes. Pupils were taught that they can earn credits by contributing creative responses in the classroom, which was explained to them as a response that is uniquely your own. This has transformed the interaction pattern in class with children of all abilities, having lost the fear of being wrong, now keen to contribute answers that are uniquely their own before someone else provides the same idea.
41. Assessment for learning-type learning conversations with and amongst young people in the EXCITE! Phase II has shown a growing appreciation amongst young people themselves for creative ideas and creative ways of working, e.g. pupils' understanding of the value of crediting and building on each others' ideas was evident and they could clearly acknowledge and articulate an appreciation of creative teaching techniques. A range of specific tools have also been developed, e.g. the Creativity Wheel of Creative Partnerships Durham and Sunderland, to enable the acknowledgment and assessment of creative achievements.
42. We acknowledge, however, that there is still a current weakness in terms of assessing progression in terms of the creative achievement of young people. At the moment we are focusing on getting more creativity into education, but surely the next step must be to focus on progression in creativity so that we don't just say every occurrence of creativity is good. How do we know if a child is getting better at creativity?
43. This was one of the key findings in the recent Ofsted inspection of Creative Partnerships[12]. One of the two key recommendations for Creative Partnerships is thus:
"Creative Partnerships should: support schools by developing a systematic approach to monitoring that clearly identifies creative achievement, defines different stages of creative development and indicates more clearly the impact of targeted intervention"
44. This fuller description of the need to develop a rigorous and systematic approach to monitoring progression in creativity is explained later in the full Ofsted report.
"Similarly, in some schools the opportunity was missed to evaluate and build upon the work of pupils already identified as creative by giving them the chance to learn alongside a creative practitioner. More generally, few schools gave attention to the issues of progression to ensure that pupils' work with creative practitioners took into account their existing level of skill. Some pupils were frustrated that there were no further opportunities to develop the skills that they had learned alongside creative practitioners."
45. We recommend that a framework for assessing progression in terms of creative learning should be developed, containing descriptors of different stages of creative development. We suggest that this should be a generic framework, looking at progression of the creative thinking process, not product outcomes, and one that could be applied across different subjects and contexts and across all age ranges. Although we recognise that individual children may apply their creative thinking skills differently in different subjects and contexts, we believe the generic process of creativity, rather than the products or outcomes should be the focus. Such a progression framework for creativity would add rigour to creative learning and it can also enable comparisons of different curves of progression with varying levels of creativity intervention in order to show impact of different creative learning initiatives.
46. Joubert has started some developmental work with schools (e.g. New Heys Community College, Liverpool and Park View Primary School, Knowsley) to explore the development of some initial creativity progression descriptors and strategic discussions about the concept has taken place with a number of key stakeholders in the QCA, Ofsted, Creative Partnerships, the DCMS Creative and Cultural Education Board, The Innovation Unit, Futurelab and various school networks and Children's Services across the country.
Embedding creativity across the curriculum and within the philosophy of schools:
47. Embedding creativity across a school does not happen overnight; it requires a sustained process of development that depends on wholehearted senior management endorsement which should not be delegated or departmentalised. It needs to be prioritised within the School Development/Improvement Plan and a climate as well as systems that enable creative learning should be established and maintained. Our work with, e.g. Creative Partnerships, has shown that the process of embedding creative practice can be facilitated and encouraged effectively by experienced creative practitioners or consultants (often called creative agents) working across the school to help keep the focus and to apply a personalised approach to help convince any cynics on the school staff to ensure buy-in all around. We recommend that the work of creative agents in schools should be encouraged and supported to enable the embedding of creative learning practices across schools.
48. Vincent Nolan, former chairman of Synectics Europe warns of "the inoculation effect" when schools only engage half-heartedly in creative learning principles. If people only get a small injection of creativity into their bloodstream, it is not enough to give them the full-blown disease (embedded creativity), so they only get inoculated with creativity, which means that they can build up resistance to creativity in their own bloodstream. Fully embedding creativity across a school thus requires significant training in creative teaching and learning approaches to all staff. Our work on the EXCITE! projects also proved that whole-school training for all teaching and support staff could lead to much quicker embedding of creativity across the philosophy of the school as opposed to drip feeding training to a few members of staff at a time.
49. If the impact of creative learning is to be sustained across a school, teachers also require a deeper understanding of the principles of creative learning not just having a creative curriculum. The principles of creative learning needs to be transferred between different contexts of learning and, if creative practitioners work alongside the school, their creative processes needs to be analysed and transferred to the school staff, more so than knowledge of their creative products. This requires time - often a scare commodity in education. We therefore recommend that creative learning should be adequately resourced in terms of time for training, time to develop more creative curricula and time to embed the philosophy of creative learning across schools to lead to whole-scale organisational change.
Linking creativity to the real world of work:
50. Young people who are able to apply independent original thinking are empowered to invent the future they want, rather than just accept the one they get. This is a powerful ability that creative learning can engender in young people and one which we believe is a necessity, not merely a nice-to have extra to succeed in the world of work in the future. It is reckoned that a third of children in school today will one day work in careers that don't even exist yet. Who will create these opportunities if young people cannot think for themselves? Joubert's work in business settings shows that the same creative thinking approaches are required across different industries. Whether it is new product development, process development or organisational development, standing still is the fastest way of moving backwards in today's fast-paced business environment. All businesses therefore need employees with the ability to develop creative ideas and remedial training often has to be done on the job if young people are not taught to think creatively at school.
51. Our work in schools across the world has shown that sustained opportunities for young people to develop their creative thinking abilities, that sets regular challenges for them, often with real life applications and that gives them opportunities to make informed decisions and choices about their own learning will help them to develop creative thinking processes as a habit of mind. We have also concluded that young people often need support and/or encouragement to articulate the potential applications of their (creative) learning in order to value it as a life-long skill that will prepare them for the real word of work.
Conclusion and Recommendations:
52. Creative learning contributes to the raising of standards of achievement and attainment, it makes learning more enjoyable and engaging, it develops a range of personal and social skills of young people, e.g. confidence and self-esteem and it helps to prepare young people for the world of work. To enable a system-wide shift towards creative learning would require an investment in training across the teaching profession as well as the development of some structures that can ensure rigorous and purposeful creativity, rather than ad-hoc accidental creativity. To this end we make four specific recommendations to the government:
· We recommend training in creativity, not merely training about creativity during initial teacher training, continued professional development, headship training and in training for cultural animators who wish to work in schools. · We recommend that a framework for assessing progression in terms of creative learning should be developed, containing descriptors of different stages of creative development. · We recommend that the work of creative agents in schools should be encouraged and supported to enable the embedding of creative learning practices across schools. · We recommend that creative learning should be adequately resourced in terms of time for training, time to develop more creative curricula and time to embed the philosophy of creative learning across schools to lead to whole-scale organisational change.
July 2007 [1] Faulkner, D. with S. Kynan & M. Joubert (2006) Excellence, Creativity and Innovation in Teaching and Education, Phase II project report for the Department of Education and Skills and the Esmee Fairburn Foundation, available from http://www.excite-education.org/
Miell, D., Joubert, M., Faulkner, D., Littleton, K. Searle, R. & Henry, J. (2004) Excellence, Creativity and Innovation in Teaching and Education, Phase I Project Report for the Department of Education and Skills and the Esmee Fairburn Foundation, available from http://www.excite-education.org/
[2] Faulkner, D. & Joubert, M (2006) The Student Voice Project, project report for Creative Partnerships Merseyside (unpublished)
[3] Foster, K., Geras, E. with Joubert, M. (2005). Facilitating story-telling and narrative development through creative partnerships. A CARA Report. http://www.creative-partnerships.com [4] NACCCE. (1999) All Our Futures: Culture, Creativity and Education. London: Department for Education and Employment. [5] Kellett, M. (2005) How to develop young children as researchers: A step by step guide to teaching the research process, London: Paul Chapman
[6] Copeland B., Whitcomb, C. and Faulkner, D. (2005) Can an artist collaborate in a new way to enhance creativity across our school? [7] Joubert, M.M. (2002): Challenging Convention: Creativity in Organisations. London: Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. [8] NCSL Creative Leadership project, 2004-5. [9] Roberts, p. (2006) Nurturing Creativity in Young people: A report to Government to inform future policy, London: department for Culture, Media and Sport. NACCCE. (1999) All Our Futures: Culture, Creativity and Education. London: Department for Education and Employment.
[10] http://www.futurelab.org.uk/about_us Fryer, M. (Ed.) (2004) Creativity and cultural diversity, Leeds: CCET (Creativity educational trust) Green, L. (2001) How popular musicians learn: A way ahead for music education, Aldershot: Ashgate; Halsey, K. (2006). What Works in Stimulating Creativity Amongst Socially Excluded Young People. Slough: NFER. http://www.nesta.org.uk/ignite/ Sefton-Green, J. (2004) Literature review on informal learning with technology outside school, Bristol: NESTA Futurelab; Somekh, B., Lewin, C., Mavers, D. et al. (2002) ImpaCT2: Pupils' and teachers' perceptions of ICT in the home, school and community, London; Department for Education and Skills. [11] NACCCE. (1999) All Our Futures: Culture, Creativity and Education. London: Department for Education and Employment. [12] Ofsted. (2006). Creative Partnerships: initiative and impact. London: Ofsted. http://www.ofsted.gov.uk
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