Memorandum submitted by Miss Vicki Kavanagh, Head Teacher, Crocketts Lane Primary School, West Midlands

 

1. Produced in consultation with Noel Dunne, Creative Agent to the school.

 

2. Nature of involvement with Black Country Creative Partnerships:

 

2.1 Crocketts Lane joined Black Country Creative Partnerships in September 2006. Our intention behind applying to become a BCCP school was to:

· develop greater confidence and awareness amongst the teaching staff of how to plan and deliver a more creative approach to teaching schemes of work within the Thematic curriculum;

· support pupil independence and enable the development of creative skills in order for them to transfer skills across the curriculum.

 

2.2 These were key areas identified in our School Improvement plan. We refined these priorities into a key focus question:

"How can creative professionals support teachers in developing a more pupil led approach to learning through specifically exploring how the school can adopt a more creative learning environment."

 

2.3 With the support of our Creative Agent Noel Dunne, pupils and teachers interviewed a range of creative practitioners and selected Mark Riley to work with us. Pupils presented proposals for how they would like to work with Mark and from these bids, the Reception and Nursery, Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6 teachers and pupils worked with the creative practitioner on Literacy, Numeracy, Science and History projects.

 

3. The experience of introducing creativity into education: the impact it has had on:

 

3.1 Young people:

 

3.1.1 Numeracy has been identified by our Ofsted report as an area for development. The Year 4 focus on creative approaches to Numeracy has enabled pupils to link learning across different curriculum areas and develop significant problem solving skills. This is contributing towards increasing our predicted SATs results for this cohort from 53% (last year) to 90%.

 

3.1.2 Pupils, particularly in Year 6, have taken a much greater ownership of the history curriculum and have generated a number of spin off learning activities from their exploration of the Victorians through the creation of a puppet theatre. This has generated positive local press coverage for the pupils and the school. They now plan to write and perform a puppet show at our summer fair-part of a self generated business plan to run a Victorian Fair.

 

3.2 Teachers:

 

3.2.1 The ideas and approaches to Literacy introduced to the reception class have been adopted and adapted by the class teacher for use with the Nursery class.

 

3.2.2 The Thematic books which inform the schemes of work are far more creative in the Year 5 curriculum than they have been in the previous two years.

 

3.3 Wider school agenda:

 

3.3.1 This process has directly supported a stated intention in our School Improvement Plan to encourage the teaching staff to think about how they can adopt more creative approaches to teaching the Thematic Curriculum.

 

3.3.2 There is a desire amongst staff to be more open to new ideas and flex their own creative thinking. This has been counterbalanced in the past by a concern that adopting a more creative approach will result in a loss of control. Working with a creative practitioner has indicated that it is possible to keep boundaries whilst experimenting with more creative approaches that engage pupils in learning.

 

4. Conclusion

 

4.1 Although still too early to prove, the Creative partnerships process has had significant value in promoting creative learning in Crocketts Lane Primary. The teachers are already building ideas they have participated in planning and delivering into next year's schemes of work and creating their own variations. This will contribute significantly to the school taking ownership of developing a more creative learning environment for pupils.

 

 

July 2007