Memorandum submitted by Lucy Childs, Head of Performing Arts, Gable Hall School, Essex

 

Summary

 

The submission from this organisation addresses the key areas identified within 'purpose' in the document describing the brief of the committee examining the work of Creative Partnerships and the Curriculum. It describes, where applicable, how those areas have been affected, in the work of the school, through working with Creative Partners.

 

This submission makes the following points:

 

· the work of creative partners has supported the re-engagement of disaffected pupils;

· teachers are already highly creative people and have adapted readily to the work of creative partners;

· the outcomes of the work with creative partners have supported aspects of pupil progress, enhancing learning;

· the work has been of real value to the development of thinking skills and team work amongst our learners;

· there is a tension between the expectations of Creative Partners and the expectations of external others e.g. OFSTED, which needs to be resolved.

 

This memorandum is submitted by Lucy Childs who is Head of Performing Arts at Gable Hall School and has acted as project manager and intermediary between Creative Partnerships and the school. Lucy has been involved in the work of Creative Partnerships since 2005.

 

Brief recommendations are made at the end of this submission.

 

1. The school was concerned that the manner in which the Partnership worked broadened our understanding of creativity, moving us beyond a narrow performing arts focus. To this end, the institution determined to focus on how creative approaches to the curriculum might excite the imagination and commitment of pupils self excluding from education, employment or training (NEET pupils). Creativity, then, became a motivational tool to re-engage the disaffected.

 

In practice this was realised within the work of the school through the employment of practitioners from, broadly, creative industry e.g. photographers; architects; fashion designers; ecologists in addition to partners from the more traditional areas of dance, drama and music.

 

2. INSET, within recent years, has focussed on teachers working closely together, creating learning communities where there is openness to the practice and ideas of others. In this school, therefore, there was an existing willingness to explore new ideas and work with others and this operated to the benefit of Creative Partnerships.

 

3. Within Gable Hall the following training issues arose resulting from our work with Creative Partners:

 

· a willingness to apply external expectations sensitively in a manner which will truly serve and advance learning for all pupils;

· a consequent ability to demonstrate independence and model this for others in decision making;

· the necessity of seeing learning holistically as opposed to a compartmentalised activity, i.e. creativity cannot be turned on and off but must permeate the activities of the learning day;

· An understanding amongst others that teachers are already highly creative people and that barriers between 'creatives' and teachers might not exist.

 

4. Within this school we felt that this work contributed to creative education through the development of skills and techniques which:

 

· enhanced the development of individuality;

· provided a platform for the expression of identity;

· encouraged learners to acquire tools for the expression of these qualities;

· encouraged the appreciation the abilities of others through team working.

 

More broadly, in this school we felt that creativity supported:

 

a) pupil confidence through the celebration of outcomes in which there are no right answers and which represented learner's individuality, engaging their curiosity, and encouraging team work which sustained positive behaviour.

b) basic skills are supported via creativity directly in the case of literacy, ICT and communication skills as these become the medium through which unique creative ideas might be presented to others.

 

5. Creative achievement amongst young people in this institution has been acknowledged and assessed in the following ways:

 

· through public presentation of outcomes at school and borough level;

· through feedback to learners and others from creative partners on creative outcomes;

· through reporting to parents on project outcomes;

· through incorporation of success/learning criteria within the institutions assessment for learning practices;

· through re-designing assessment criteria in all subjects to ensure and acknowledgement of creativity.

 

Recommendations

 

· capital sums should be made directly available to schools and spending decisions made by Creative Partnerships and schools together, currently funding is controlled solely by Creative Partnerships and this might be seen to undermine the nature of 'partnership';

· it might be useful for 'Creatives' working with schools to receive training which develops their understandings of the experience of teachers during the last few years so that they might appreciate the considerable amount of creativity already exercised by teachers;

· the partnership is a key method for ensuring that creativity is a significant feature of the work we do and contributes to conversations about learning within the profession and has made an invaluable contribution to the quality of pupils' learning experience and should, therefore, continue.

 

 

July 2007