Memorandum submitted by Mrs B Julie O'Brien, Headteacher, Our Lady of Peace Catholic Junior School

 

Creative Partnerships has helped our pupils to be questioning and challenging and has expanded their imagination and self belief so that they are better able to envisage what might be. They are more able to explore ideas and to reflect critically on possibilities. They are happier to take risks without fear of failure.

 

1. I am the Headteacher of a Catholic Junior School in Slough. The school became a Slough Creative Partnership school in September 2002. I have always felt that weaving creativity and a creative approach to learning into the curriculum opens and extends children's capacity to capitalise on learning opportunities. The whole school community - pupils, staff, parents and governor's has been enriched through links and collaboration with a wide range of creative partners.

 

2. In our school we decided on three basic principles

a) Creativity should be planned for and dove-tailed into the curriculum rather than be a discrete or "bolt-on" and be linked to many curriculum areas.

b) All pupils in the school each year should experience working alongside at least one creative partner.

c) Approaches to learning stimulated by a creative partner must be sustainable and evaluated.

 

3. The OFSTED Inspection report November 2006 made references to the impact of Creative Partnerships at Our Lady of Peace Junior School.

"[Pupils] make particularly good progress in reading partly due to the drama work developed as part of the Creative Partnership projects. This has improved pupils' inference skills, especially in Years 5 and 6".

"The school embarked on the Creative Partnerships in 2002: this has had a major impact on a variety of aspects of the curriculum and contributes well to the pupils well rounded education and to their economic understanding".

 

4. A Learning Leader Creativity has been appointed with TLR2 to ensure planning and sustainability. She is providing INSET based on our experiences to other Slough Schools. Through Inservice training by Creative Partners of all staff (LSA's and Teachers) the whole school is now engaged in the principle of creative learning.

 

5. Stained Glass Window Project

Unusually for our school this project was aimed at a specific, small group of pupils (16) in Year 4 (8/9 year olds). These pupils had received Springboard Maths boosting because of underperformance / under attainment but their maths had not moved. Working with a creative partner, an artist, who works in glass, these pupils supported also by a teacher an d an LSA estimated, designed, measured, ordered materials and created a stained glass window which is a permanent feature of our school. They worked to a budget and faxed orders to the glass suppliers. The project lasted 4 weeks and pupils kept records. The increased self esteem and pleasure in maths these pupils had as a result of this project is palpable. We are now tracking these pupils maths progress but the effect of the project has spread beyond Maths. As a final celebration our Bishop blessed the window.

 

6. Year 6 Production

The confidence and originality in this year's end of term musical production has been the best yet. This year pupils are performing Roald Dahl's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". This requires the ability to positively engage the audience in an interactive way which requires pupils to have a greater awareness than just the confines of the play or their learnt lines. We have 90 pupils in Year 6 - all pupils involved on stage. This year much of the choreography was devised by the pupils themselves. The greatest innovation is that the pupils themselves decided the story ending was unsatisfactory and they wrote between them a final scene with Roald Dahlesque rhyming couplets and some very funny jokes all in keeping with the rest of the play. The whole of their Key Stage 2 career has been in a Creative Partnership School.

 

I cannot stress enough the positive impact Creative Partnerships has had on our school. Attendance and punctuality have improved and our pupils move on to secondary school with self-confidence. Our Lady of Peace Junior School has been privileged to benefit from Slough's Creative Partnerships. It should be rolled out nationally so all schools can enjoy these benefits.

 

July 2007