Memorandum submitted by Louise Comerford Boyes, Research Fellow. School of Lifelong Education and Development, University of Bradford

 

 

Summary of 'Closer2!' a Creative Partnerships Durham Sunderland 'Schools of Innovation Award' project.

 

1. Background

 

The Closer2! project is a partnership between a special school in the North East of England with a rising intake of children with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD), and a team of four creative practitioners with whom they have worked before. Closer2! is project focussed on deepening and developing engagement with an existing multi-sensory ICT-based resource - the concrete result of the original partnership project, Closer! - that is installed in the sound and light room.

 

The specific aims of Closer2! were to:

 

· use the imagery, movement and sound the installation as a means of supporting interaction and the pre-speech fundamentals of communication. This to be done partly via the Laban technique led by the dance artist;

 

· use the Closer! project as a vehicle for exploring how to facilitate alternative approaches within the curriculum so that it becomes more inclusive. This includes looking carefully at how opportunities for pupils to be creative can be maximised within the curriculum that has to be taught.

 

2. The project

 

Stage 1

The project has three stages, each being approximately a term in length. Within the first stage (Spring Term 2007), the researcher collected data with all school staff to establish a baseline picture of the extent to which the installation was used, after which the creative team supported staff in becoming more familiar (and therefore more confident) with its hardware and technical aspects. Staff supported the creative team in developing additional software ('patches') so that the resource became more finely tuned to the emerging needs of the pupils. As an additional mechanism to lever staff engagement, the lead teacher and creative team then worked together to map the curricular relevance of resource: the research so far had made apparent that staff, whilst happy to recognise the personal and social benefits for pupils working with the resource, also needed to be able to perceive its curricular relevance for more able pupils.

 

Finally, the lead teacher, researcher and creative team worked together to devise templates for data collection that would track pupils' creative and social engagement and their personal responses to the resource throughout Stage 2 (Summer Term 2007). A tailor-made 'Creative Behaviours Tracker', to structure careful observations of pupil engagement in terms of response to resource, response to challenge, making links and seeing relationships, communication, personal & social development and finally emotional value (e.g. pleasure etc) was piloted and produced as the main instrument for capturing pupil development.

 

Stage 2

At the beginning of Stage 2, (April 2007) the lead teacher supported staff to engage with the resource more effectively by establishing a timetable for the sound and light room, and a case study cohort of ten children was identified. These children approximately represented the range of chronological age, academic and cognitive ability and varying degrees of ASD of the pupil population; two of these children deselected themselves by choosing not to engage. Data capture was achieved by an experienced parent volunteer and the research consultant carrying out ongoing careful observations of staff-supported sessions with individual pupils using the Creative Behaviours Tracker and subsequently discussing as sample of what they had respectively observed to establish interrater reliability.

 

Findings so far:

 

· Pupils developed more varied and sophisticated responses which included in most cases being prepared to try out new things;

 

· They progressed to working more independently, including some pupils being able to work things out for themselves and solve small problems;

 

· Pupils moved from noticing patterns and/or cause and effect sequences to being able to generate and play with such with greater independence and proactivity;

 

· Some pupils clearly remembered events from past sessions and made links and connections between existing knowledge and new situations;

 

· Pupils who were reportedly non-verbal in classroom settings tended to exhibit atypical verbal behaviour when working with the resource such as exclaiming and/or speaking out a word. It helped some of the more able pupils to construct richer language use such as being able to form descriptions, and to be able to lead conversation as opposed to merely respond;

 

· Staff were particularly pleased when pupils interacted and engaged with them socially and communicated in ways which were not typical.

 

Additionally the lead teacher and researcher have respectively conducted a short focus group and follow up interviews with staff and these have established that:

 

· staff talk very animatedly about the applicability, flexibility and potential of Closer! and that there has been staff learning in terms of its relevance for older and/or more able pupils and for more than one pupil at a time;

 

· in discussing and sharing information about exactly which patches supported various learning outcomes: social, cognitive and developmental for pupils of all abilities, staff indicate that they are far more familiar with and confident about the resource;

 

· the resource is used far more frequently and that positive impacts on pupils are becoming apparent.

 

To encourage deeper reflection on the latter, the researcher has mapped the progression of each case study pupil by working through series of observations, and has provide summaries for staff member to reflect and comment upon.

 

 

Stage 3

Stage 3 (Autumn Term 2007) will see a continuation of case study pupils working with the resource, this time with school staff carrying out observations alongside the researcher. Staff will also be encouraged to commit to their own reflective practice via a diary and a final focus group. Input from the creative team will include upgrading staff technical skills via further inset. In addition, a big focus will be pupils and teachers working with the dance artist to explore Laban technique in order to develop existing Laban expertise in school and staffs' extend school use of the resource to integrate movement work for pupils who need this. A final report will be produced at the end of Stage 3.

 

 

3. Final comments

 

Issues that are particularly relevant to this project include:

 

· Given that several discourses as to what creative engagement 'looks like' exist, what determines - and what should determine - how we define creativity in the context of special education?

 

· Planning for and executing data collection with pupils whose various needs demand that we do so creatively and resourcefully, needs also to take account of the importance of not overburdening teachers with yet more innovation, but starting with the good practice that already exists;

 

· What impacts can engaging with the creative sector have on the special school sector, and how does the wider community become engaged?

 

· What particular needs and necessities should to be taken when considering partnerships between creative practitioners and pupils with ASD?

 

· Is there a particular relevance for using a creative curriculum to assist achievement in other areas in the special school context?

 

July 2007