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Memorandum submitted by Christopher Chapman, Creative Partnerships Co-ordinator, Haywood High School and Engineering College, Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent
(1) Our successful application was made to become a 'core school' within Creative Partnerships Stoke-on-Trent in May 2005. In our bid, we outlined our vision for creativity within our school:
(2)"We aim to be a happy, dynamic, caring learning centre, full of independent learners of both sexes, young and old, asylum seekers and refugees from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. They will be developing the creative and thinking skills necessary to access education for life in a rapidly changing world. All teachers, support staff and staff from other agencies will be utilising a variety of strategies and styles based on creative thinking and the use of multiple intelligences. As well as leaving academically and vocationally well qualified, all students will be confident citizens caring about the world in which they live. "
(3) We saw Creative Partnerships as a valuable tool in adding new capacity to underpin innovation and change in relation to our school development plan. There is no doubt that this, and more has been achieved, and whilst we are only some two years (18 months active work) into this process, this relationship has been transformative, a powerful change catalyst that has permeated the school ethos.
(4)The projects we have developed have been far removed from the traditionalist and somewhat erroneous preconception of creativity being confined to 'arts across the curriculum'. The creative practitioners we have engaged have been from a diverse set of backgrounds, from pottery artists, to actors, PR companies to film-makers, architects, even yoga practitioners. These have provided the students and staff of our school with a stimulating and varied set of experiences and a range of valuable opportunities to acquire new, exciting skills.
(5) I would like to qualify this impact through referring to a number of projected we have undertaken.
(6) Project: Aiming Higher, is a title that is derived from our school motto and also from the inspirational nature of our project. This is a project that is student driven in ethos and was directed through the outcomes of a series of consultation sessions held with 25 talented Design and Technology students in April of 2006. During these open thinking sessions, students explored their attitudes towards our school and their learning. They felt that the space and dimensions of classrooms did not inspire them to learn - as a result, they have set about designing a new learning space that did.
(7) This has become a three-year project that will result in a unique structure on the school site that will be a new learning environment, designed by young people, for young people. It will also become a venue that will be offered as an extended facility for the local community. It will be a magnificent feat of Engineering that adds an iconic, permanent fixture to the regional landscape. Imagine a cross between a Norman Foster building and a spaceship, a fusion of physics, engineering and solar power. Imagine being in a glass pod, transported up a steel structure and stepping into an amazing learning space right up in the air - you can see your whole city, your aspirations are raised, you are hungry to learn - you can aim higher. This will be a circular learning space that will transform teaching and learning behaviours, offering new and exciting opportunities for both teachers and students.
(8) Students have been and will be, working with a varied team of creative professionals, from architects, brand designers, web developers, structural engineers to scientists, to equip them with the skills and expertise to make informed design choices and decisions. There will also be a training programme to develop the skills of our students in developing a business plan and pitching their ideas to investors, stakeholders and the surrounding community. The wheels of this process are already in motion, having received attention in the press, our students have presented on our project to audiences of education officials at the Stoke-on-Trent BSF launch event and at the DFES advocacy event held in London in which our project was selected to represent the recent work done by Creative Partnerships Stoke-on-Trent at a national showcase event. The impact of our project also became a feature of the Creative Partnerships National 'Exciting Minds' conference, at which our Headteacher was been invited to speak.
(9) This is a project that has begun to saturate our whole school ethos, catalysing change across the whole school. On January 8th our Future Schools - Future Learning conference was held. This was a landmark event, marking a new era of change, creativity and innovation across all aspects of our school, projecting us into the 21st century as a "future school". Through a series of presentations, workshops hosted by staff and a diverse range of creative practitioners, delegates identified and explored the implications of future learning and teaching practice, providing a platform from which departments could generate and share their vision and aspirations for the future. This work was further reflected in our rewritten school vision statement, establishing a clear (creative) direction for the school to move towards in forthcoming years.
(10) The project work undertaken through creative partnerships - not just through project Aiming Higher but through additional projects such as Stadium Cities and Hearts on Fire - has taught us a valuable lesson about the student voice: if we are to move forward as a learning institution our most powerful resource is the drive and creative energy of our students. It has also offered us new ways of connecting and embracing this voice. As a result, the student council has recently been remodelled to offer a more robust and effective system through which students can have a meaningful input into the school change and improvement process, with a series of managed committees that run in-line with staff committees within school. This will be further strengthened by our involvement with two projects that will run over the 2007-8 academic year. "Get in", a training and development programme for young people to act as young evaluators and decision-makers within our school, and the QCA / Creative Partnerships Curriculum Co-development Programme. This will see staff working alongside students in developing new exiting schemes of study around a re-modelled curriculum, that is based on a set of principles and competencies developed through student and staff consultation - this will be a curriculum co-owned and co-designed by staff and students. Our work has further been recognised by OFSTED, in which our recent report identified our school as good and improving with a number of outstanding features:
(11) "Students said what a special school this is and Inspectors agree"
(12) "... students are encouraged and supported to aim high. Students involved in the Creative Partnerships project spoke with confidence and excitement about their original ideas for the Building Schools for the Future developments for this school and their visit to the Department for Education and Skills to discuss this" (OFSTED Insp. No. 302296, 16-17th May 2007)
(13) I offer the following summative points to conclude, in relation to the impact of our involvement with Creative Partnerships. It is a change catalyst that has... • Redefined the parameters of our vision • Invigorated and inspired us to think creatively towards our future as a learning institution • Underpinned, strengthened and enhanced our core values as an Engineering college: innovation, creativity, technology, change • Opened up new dialogues about teaching and learning • Helped us engage more effectively with our most important learning partner: our student body.
(14) CP has been instrumental in helping us to identify some of the key ways in which we wish our school to move forward - it is not only helped us to think more creatively, but, as a consequence, our children are empowered and pro-active in the decisions that will shape their future and the future of our school. Though partnership working, a whole new additional and powerful dimension has been added to our school, giving us significant capacity to continue to 'aim higher', as a centre of excellence in learning. It is our belief that creativity and partnership working need to be at the very heart of teaching, learning and school improvement agendas if education is to reflect that values and needs of our students as successful citizens within the 21st century work.
Annex Submitted as Student Evidence: Letter to Serco, inviting them to Stoke-on-Trent Conference June 3rd and outlining their views on CP projects Re: Invitation to Re-create, Creative Partnerships Stoke-on-Trent Conference at Victoria Hall, 3rd July
(1)We are writing to ask for your audience in our up and coming: "Re-create" event. This event is the annual conference of Creative Partnerships in Stoke-on-Trent and will take place on Tuesday 2nd July. We believe both your company and the schools of Stoke-on-Trent would benefit from your presence. (2)The event will include several workshops and talks, from staff and students alike which will hopefully give you an insight to the interesting and original learning projects that schools in Stoke-on-Trent that have developed through their work with Creative Partnerships. (3)Our school, Haywood High School and Engineering College, will be hosting a workshop in the morning, which will be about the projects we've been involved in, as a student group. These projects have all shown us new and interesting ways of looking at our learning. Through Creative Partnerships the student group have become involved with such projects as: · Hearts on Fire (First ever Creative Partnerships project in Stoke). · Stadium Cities · Project: Aiming Higher (4) Hearts on Fire was a brilliant introduction to creative learning and led the way for the other main projects. At the beginning of the project the students were informed that they had a chance to combine two of the more hands-on lessons (Art and Technology) to design a "Fire Drawing" in four groups of seven. Basically we were given the materials and freedom to compose our own fire drawings that, that we then burnt on an evening when our parents and other members of the school could see. (5) We then were involved in a film-making project called Stadium Cities where Year 9 students developed and produced a series of films looking at issues to do with the local community and a Stoke-on-Trent. It was great to work with experienced film-makers and get a chance to show our work at a big celebration event to our parents and friends. It also taught us how important our local area is to us. (6)In Project: Aiming Higher another group of students came together, on the idea of creating an innovative new learning space, that would enable students to learn through inspirational and exciting surroundings. (7)Students would be taught in a high tower, in a pod of glass and steel, where you can see the whole of Stoke-on-Trent and where they will be taught in the round and learn through all the latest technologies. We hope it will set new standards for school and classrooms design and we hope that people will want to come and see from all over the country. Everybody at a school is really enthusiastic about this and we've even been consulted in the re-design of the whole School. (8)There are lots of other projects we would like to show you, too and we've got many more exciting and creative projects that are coming up. We hope you will attend this conference and share in our enthusiasm.
Yours Sincerely
Students of Haywood High School
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