Memorandum submitted by Castle Vale School and Specialist Performing Arts College, Birmingham

 

Main points:

 

 

1.1 Creativity has played a major part in the continuing development of our school in terms of outcomes and in developing a positive learning community which uses innovation to engage learners. The Creative Partnerships (CP) links have been a key part of developing learners' creativity, and increasingly teaching all aspects of the curriculum creatively. This in turn has reinforced the vital role of creativity in developing key skills and personal attributes for success. It is also broadened our learners' horizons in many ways, including working with young people from different backgrounds and those with disabilities. CP opens doors that would otherwise be shut.

 

Context:

 

2.1 Our school, which serves a largely very deprived community, is 'improving' (OFSTED 2007) rapidly and has placed the creativity of both pupils and adults as a central part of our drive for improvement. The school has worked with CP since its inception.

 

2.2 In 2006-7, we wanted to build the positive experiences which have resulted from CP projects for children into the mainstream curriculum and also to provide an inspiration for teachers (and other adults) to plan creatively and to develop creativity in young people. We focussed this work in our new thematic curriculum for Year 7 which we are 'using to make learning more engaging, interesting and challenging, with the intention to offer similar learning opportunities in the wider curriculum' (OFSTED 2007).

 

2.3 Learners have responded very positively to two projects run with an arts group through CP. One was a literacy-based project on the theme of 'Light' in which pupils experienced a dark maze. This also developed pupils' emotional literacy as they discussed and described their feelings. The second project also involved a bicycle which was linked to electrical items, powered by pupils pedalling. This was a cross-curricular theme relating to both the Environment and leading to the next theme of Robots. Pupil feedback on these experiences was very positive.

 

2.4 Teachers (and other adults) have worked in writing teams to incorporate these events into the curriculum: they were not 'bolted on'. Colleagues from the arts group have worked with teams of teachers on developing ideas. One project was to design cities from fruit and vegetables. However, our teachers changed the ideas completely and reworked them into pupils using computer animation to represent key moments from the Renaissance (another of our themes). This led to computer animation being used in other subject areas, such as demonstrating the way blood circulates in Science.

 

2.5 Colleagues were also inspired in their planning of 'non-timetable' days, such as the extremely successful rocket day, based on another cross-curricular theme of 'Space', in which pupils re-enacted the Space Race, with groups representing the USA and USSR, launching increasingly complex water-powered rockets. Creative ways of exploring canal locks and the use of light in different religious and cultural contexts have engaged our pupils.

 

2.6 Therefore, CP links have provided stimuli for both young people and their teachers. The role of creativity in preparing learning experiences was also enhanced by a training day organised by the same arts group.

 

2.7 These experiences have been enjoyed by large groups of staff and all of one year group of pupils. CP links have also created exciting longer-term projects for smaller groups, such as a textiles project on the slave trade, and a musical project on fairy tales, leading to a performance in Birmingham's Symphony Hall. In the build-up to this project, learners worked with pupils from a special school, which had an important impact upon them. These pupils worked together with two composers and the CBSO. In the words of our Arts Project Manager, CP has 'opened doors' which would be otherwise shut, and described the way this project broke down barriers as his most satisfying to date.

 

Conclusion:

 

3.1 It is part of our school's vision to embrace creativity in our approach to learning. The various high quality activities related to our Performing Arts status clearly demonstrates the impact on self-esteem and the raising of standards. We are using this now across all subjects. Pupils' feedback is extremely positive. CP has given us the way into maximising the culture sectors' skills and ideas, using them both directly with young people and also as an inspiration to those planning their experience of school. We believe the model should be extended, with the focus on embedding experience of the culture sector into the learning experiences of all pupils within the curriculum, as part of a focus on embracing creativity within it.

 

3.2 We would also encourage the government to support the present proposal from within the QCA for more theme-based learning at Key Stage Three as a way of allowing more opportunities for young people to develop their creativity. Such approaches would allow work within CP projects to occur in a meaningful context, and also would allow teacher creativity to flow. The present testing arrangements in Year 9 are a stumbling block to such experiences.

 

July 2007