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Memorandum submitted by Wilbraham Primary School, Manchester
1. Summary of Main points · Context of School and Submitter · Rationale behind the adoption of Creative Approaches to Curriculum Delivery · Practical Examples · Results of Creative Approaches · Conclusion
2. Context of School and submitter Wilbraham Primary School is a large two-form entry school in a deprived area of inner city Manchester. The school serves a varied population. Many of our families come from ethnically diverse backgrounds with many of our children having English as an additional language. A large percentage of our children also qualify for free school meals. There is also a recent history of social deprivation, gang culture, drugs and gun crime in the surrounding area.
The submitter is a Key Stage 2 Teacher with leadership responsibility for developing the Curriculum.
3. Rationale behind the adoption of Creative Approaches to Curriculum Delivery Many of the children we teach do not respond in an appropriate or functional way to the more traditional approaches to Curriculum delivery. In particular, many needs were not being met by the delivery of key parts of the curriculum in traditional blocked lesson formats. There were also issues around ability levels and language acquisition and skills, which meant that differentiating traditional lessons was becoming increasingly difficult.
To address these needs we first looked at Government data on the underachievement of boys writing. Government data suggests that the main reason boys underachieve is that they do not see a real purpose or reason for their writing. We used a whole school training day to address these issues and as a starting point for developing our Creative Approach. Through looking at suggested writing outcomes from the Literacy Framework, we were able to identify an audience, purpose and real outcome for each finished piece of writing. We then looked at where links could be made with other subjects. The outcome of this exercise was a "Joined-up" approach to the curriculum across the school. We also investigated enriching the curriculum. Each year group has a planned set of visits to galleries, museums and other local amenities and visitors to school. We have also been involved in the MAGPIE project which has particularly helped develop the more traditional creative partnership between school an galleries and museums in years 3 and 4.
This is a project run by Manchester LEA consultants. The focus of the project is to develop links between schools and local Galleries and museums. In particular the project has helped schools to use museum and gallery artefacts as a resource to support the teaching of writing.
This exercise has now led us to develop a more creative way of delivering the curriculum. Literacy and Numeracy whole class sessions are still delivered and key skills taught. However, children do not all do follow up literacy and numeracy activities immediately after the main lesson. There will be a range of activities set out in the classroom reflecting a weekly theme. After a whole class lesson has been delivered, one or two groups will work on follow-up activities with the teacher or teaching assistant. Other children will work through other activities around the classroom independently. At some point during the week, the teacher or TA will lead a group in each activity to ensure its' success. The activities have to be open-ended to allow for differentiation and extension. Some of the activities would be of a cross-curricular nature, for example a Science activity with an element of data handling. Activities build on previous skills and experiences which leads to increased independence and interest.
This approach means that key skills are still being taught in whole class sessions, but children are given choice and take some responsibility for their learning. "Attachment and Loss Theory" suggests that giving disaffected (and un-socialised) or withdrawn children choices greatly improves their attachment and behaviour.
Our experience in this method of delivery has suggested that it helps support children's emotional and social skills, improves their behaviour, allows teachers to spend more time teaching small groups without significant interruption and has had a positive affect on children's learning outcomes.
The evidence submitted to Warwick University as a part of the MAGPIE project also suggests that children's writing improves greatly when stimuli are improved and writing tasks are purposeful. Under this Creative Approach, a typical day would look something like this:
The whole class skills lesson in the afternoon would vary from day to day. The independent literacy and numeracy activities would relate back to skills taught in the Whole Class Sessions. We believe that this creative approach addresses a number of key needs not met by more traditional approaches.
4. A practical example of a Joined-Up Creative Unit Using instruction writing in year 3 as a starting point, a number of links were made. This unit was taught in the second half of the autumn term. The focal point of the unit was Healthy Eating. We arranged for the Dental Health service to visit school and discuss healthy eating. We also visted the canteen and discussed the food on offer with our school cook. We visited local shops to buy fruit, vegetables hebs and spices. We tasted and rated the produce we had bought. We used the produce to make healthy food for the year group Christmas and Eid parties. We also taught the pupils how to make a healthy tomato sauce for pasta, the school cook made it for us and we tasted it. We then used all the stimili as a starting point for writing instructions for making the sauce and making healthy sandwiches for our Eid and Christmas parties. The children also took the recipie home and some made the sauce for their parents and carers. As well as bieng an example of joined up teaching, we also believe that it successfully meets all of the five aims of "Every Child Matters".
5. Results of Creative Approaches This approach has been used successfully in key stage 1 and year 3. Next year the approach will be extended to year 4 and 5. As mentioned above, there has been a marked improvement in the behaviour of our most disaffected children. Where literacy units have been successfully linked to creative experiences such as visits and visitors, we have seen improved writing outcomes. We have also found that teachers have had more opportunity to deliver quality focused teaching time to both individuals and groups. Finally, our children have expressed their real enjoyment at working in such a way. As teachers, we have seen children's confidence and skills develop in ways which could not have been planned for. The inclusive nature of this approach allows children to succeed in areas in which they lack confidence or feel they are not "naturally" good at.
6. Conclusion This approach has moved beyond the traditional definition of creativity in schools being focused on the arts. It is about using the whole of the curriculum and all the resources available to schools creatively. A major part of this way of organising the delivery of the curriculum is that it also builds on ideas and interests that a child brings into school. The approach works well alongside other initiatives such as inclusion rooms and counselling services. It has also empowered teachers to respond creatively to the curriculum and become more confident when working in partnership with outside arts-based agencies. As a school, we have become more able to ask local museums and galleries deliver what our children need and we want rather than what happens to be included in their programme of events. There are training issues for staff new to the approach, but these have all been handled in house through performance management and whole school leadership structures.
We hope that you can see how this approach allows all our children to achieve real success and experience the satisfaction of seeing their own skills develop in ways that suit their needs and experiences.
July 2007
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