Creative learning

Learning about climate change: lesson ideas

scameron — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 13:29:59 +0100

The government recently announced a package of measures designed to revitalise geography in schools. During secondary education, interest in geography is declining - and it is an important area of study. While many of the government's initiatives are designed for the KS3+ classroom, there is no reason why some ‘real-world' geography issues cannot be introduced in the KS2 classroom.

What is climate change?

Four ways to promote creativity in schools

scameron — Thu, 19 May 2011 15:10:34 +0100

We cannot be serious all the time: schools need to be exciting stimulating places where people can laugh, have ideas, clash and spark off each other, says David Leat

Making creativity central to all learning

scameron — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 17:12:14 +0100

School context

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Creativity and the primary curriculum

scameron — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 17:00:12 +0100

‘The touchstone of an excellent curriculum is that it instils in children a love of learning for its own sake. This means that primary children must not only learn what to study, they must also learn how to study.' (The Primary Curriculum Review Executive Summary, p8)
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Being a creative early years practitioner

scameron — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:33:20 +0100

Welcome to the first edition of our new e-bulletin, Early Years Focus. This fortnightly electronic newsletter will provide you with topical information and advice to support your work with young children in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). It will highlight key issues in the world of early years care and education, providing you with practical ideas and guidance to help you secure good outcomes for the children and families you work with.
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Creative thinking tools for the classroom: Kick Cards, The Inverse, Double Six

scameron — Tue, 19 May 2009 12:17:01 +0100

We all have a natural capacity to imagine, think speculatively and make bold connections between ideas. However, as children grow older, this capacity is often dulled whether due to an overdose of high-stakes testing, fear of failure, anxiety or peer pressure.
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Creativity: promoting discussion through a Concept Line activity

jlee — Tue, 05 May 2009 16:57:16 +0100

Last time, we looked at a case study from a secondary school in Northumberland where staff and KS3 students are actively engaged in exploring how creativity might be promoted in students’ learning across the curriculum. In this issue, we will look at one of the activities used to initiate dialogue about creativity between staff and students.
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Encouraging creative thinkers: working across the curriculum

scameron — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 10:26:32 +0100

This e-bulletin will continue to explore how the QCA Personal, Learning and Thinking Skills framework can be put into practice. So far we have explored practical ideas and classroom resources useful for helping students develop as ‘Independent Enquirers’ and effective ‘Team Workers’.
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How can schools achieve a creative curriculum?

scameron — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 16:53:20 +0000

The growth of the Foundation Stage over recent years and the movement of its ideas into KS1, have highlighted the continuous development of creativity within current educational thinking. The constraints of the QCA guidelines have in many cases led to a prescribed manner of long-term planning that in best case scenarios uses the local environment, local history and communities to highlight the learning intentions of the schemes and at worst is teaching by numbers.
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Creative classrooms

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:28:27 +0100

Creative classrooms encourage creative thinking.

This resource explores what students want from their learning environment and looks at how to design an inspirational space.

Written by Dr Catherine Burke

Enrichment Activities: Sportswear design and the use of slang

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:21:43 +0100
This week's primary enrichment activity looks at slang and asks pupils to develop and use their own private language.

This week's secondary enrichment activity explores the potential psychological effects and competitive advantages of new developments in swimwear.

***Primary Enrichment***

KS 2: Modern Foreign Languages (MFL)

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Supporting pupils with SEN in art

sara — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:21:41 +0100

Support for SENCOs
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Enrichment Activities: Fossils and green energy

sara — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:21:40 +0100
This week's primary enrichment activity, drawing on two recent fossil studies of animal ancestors for inspiration, pupils are encouraged to think of imaginary animals and describe their habitats.

This week's secondary enrichment activity looks at the recent opening of the first marine turbine to produce commercial electricity and encourages pupils to consider which natural energy sources could best be converted into electricity.

***Primary Enrichment***

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Enrichment Activities: Thinking about bereavement; designing homes

sara — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:21:40 +0100
This week's primary enrichment activity asks pupils to imagine living in flying houses and to consider the social consequences of populating the skies.

This week's secondary enrichment activity looks at how we manage death and bereavement and asks pupils to consider whether a less sombre approach to funerals is a good or bad thing.

***Primary Enrichment***

KS2: Design and technology

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Enrichment Activities: Mathematics and Ethics

sara — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:21:38 +0100
This week's primary enrichment activity refers to 'Pi Day', getting pupils to explore mathematics and apply it within a global context.

This week's secondary enrichment activity encourages pupils to consider their ethical positions, drawing on the recent controversy over a trick involving an elephant.

***Primary Enrichment***

KS2: Mathematics. Breadth of study.

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Enrichment Activities: conflict resolution and problem solving

sara — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:21:37 +0100
This week's primary enrichment activity is based on the dispute between Cambodia and Thailand, over land surrounding a temple at the border of both countries. Using the concept of a 'peace garden' it encourages pupils to think of ways to resolve conflict and tolerate others.

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Enrichment Activities: representation and recycling

sara — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:21:37 +0100
This week's primary enrichment activity draws on the recent news of a missing fishing net. Using this as the inspiration, pupils have to design a dance to represent the net, encouraging pupils to think about the different elements of creative representation.

This week's secondary enrichment activity uses two examples of houses built from recycled materials. Getting pupils to think about waste reduction and innovative ways to use recycled materials effectively.

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Enrichment Activities: resources, economics, scarcity and plenty

sara — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:21:36 +0100
This week's primary enrichment activity gets pupils thinking creatively around the possible uses of long planks of wood.
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Enrichment Activities: planning for the future

sara — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:21:36 +0100
This week's primary enrichment activity looks at the implications of natural disasters, encouraging pupils to think logically about how to plan effectively for these emergences.

This week's secondary enrichment activity draws on the redesign of the classroom chair, getting pupils to think of innovative ways to improve the design of other items of classroom furniture.

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Behind the buzzwords: Creativity

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:21:01 +0100

Creativity has gained mainstream currency now that personal, learning and thinking skills (PLTS) have been embedded across the new 11-19 curriculum. One of the PLTS outcomes is that pupils become creative thinkers. This dimension is considered critical in its own right, but is also seen as a means to raise overall achievement (‘Pupils’ creativity to be assessed, 15 February 2008).
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How to discover and nurture artistic talent

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:21:00 +0100
Gifted and talented students may have individual or unusual artistic skills and interests which can be difficult to nurture within the school curriculum. The lucky ones will be attending lessons or workshops outside school, but there will be others whose needs are not fulfilled. These students could benefit greatly from taking part in the Arts Award scheme.

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Learning through dance

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:59 +0100

Callington Sports College is part of a mixed comprehensive school in central eastern Cornwall attended by over 1,250 students. The college was awarded sports college status in 2000 and strives to make the entire educational experience “challenging, stimulating and worthwhile”.

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From compliance with the curriculum to creativity in the classroom

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:58 +0100
At the launch of the new secondary curriculum in 2007, Dr Ken Boston, head of QCA, declared: ‘The traditional approach to covering the syllabus has been exhausted, it has delivered all it can. It can do no more.’ But with the new curriculum opening up more creative possibilities, what could a new approach to CPD look like? The Chrysalis project, which has been running in Wakefield for several years, may point the way.

The importance of collaboration

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Building a curriculum for confidence and responsibility

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:57 +0100

Park View is an oversubscribed, DCSF-designated high performing school which has both leading edge and language college status. Our last Ofsted report concluded that ‘Park View is a very effective school. It is led with vision and energy. A strong focus on how well pupils learn shines through all activities.’

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Nurturing young writers

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:56 +0100
In January last year, I worked on an ambitious writing project with 30 Year 6 and 7 pupils from a wide range of Warrington’s schools. I have previously led creative writing courses and masterclasses, but this project was different; it was to extend over three terms and therefore include the period of transition to high school.
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A different approach: teaching through the arts

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:54 +0100
Gallions Primary School opened in September 1999 on the Winsor Park Estate in the London Borough of Newham. Nearly all the children who came to the school did so because they had failed at their previous schools. They were disillusioned with the concept of education. We had to reverse their expectation.

Curriculum

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Creative thinking: a personal, learning and thinking skill

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:51 +0100

The latest manifestation of cross-curricular skills, as most of you will have registered, is personal, learning and thinking skills (PLTS). The six are:
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Guy Claxton's character curriculum for the learning age

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:45 +0100

We seem to live in a morally bashful age. Perish the thought that anyone might try to ‘impose their values’ on anyone else. Education colludes with this squeamishness by pretending that the only serious questions it faces are technical ones. How are we going to raise standards? What are the most appropriate methods for testing students, and when, and how much? Should we have 14-16 diplomas, or a six-term year? But words like ‘standards’ and ‘appropriate’ merely finesse the underlying moral questions.
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Be creative with maths

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:43 +0100
Numeracy is an essential part of the curriculum – and one of the first concerns of any Ofsted inspector. It is all too easy to fall into the lessons-by-rote trap when teaching maths, simply because there are so many required elements to be covered throughout the year. A steady diet of worksheets can be the quickest way to boredom on everyone’s part – and bored children soon start playing up. Always being on the lookout for new ideas and being willing to try them out helps stop lessons and teachers from becoming stale.

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Building partnerships to boost creativity

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:41 +0100
‘Partnerships between schools and creative practitioners help unlock the creativity of learners and educators and develop creative approaches to teaching all aspects of the curriculum.’
Lord Adonis, Schools Minister

Creativity is being seen by an increasing number of schools as a process that can increase the motivation of teachers and learners, raising achievement and helping them to meet improvement targets.

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Transforming teaching and learning: the practicalities

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:38 +0100

I will start with a snippet I heard on the radio. The entertainment industry is now a £4bn export earner and tens of thousands of people work in that industry. Art, music, literature, dance and theatre earn that money through live performance and saleable products. The wealth is generated by the artists and the directors, designers, administrators and clerical and technical staff. This is but one example of the human and economic value of being creative.
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Literacy: fabulous fridge magnets

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:37 +0100
Look at the text below. What kind of sense does it make?

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Encouraging musical creativity in the early years

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:35 +0100

Small children spend much of their time playing and most have no fears about the challenge facing them as they set about painting a picture or modelling with play dough. Children are equally at home when improvising their own songs and playing with musical instruments, although putting them in the spotlight without first preparing the ground can turn a budding composer into a shrinking violet. Before they can make their own music, children need to have some experience of rhythm, pitch, dynamics, tempo and timbre and this they acquire by interacting musically with adults.
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Creativity in the science curriculum

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:31 +0100
Many primary teachers find it hard to devise imaginative ways of teaching science, especially if they are not science specialists. The younger the age group, the harder it is. Fortunately there are numerous initiatives at hand to make it easier.

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Restructuring the curriculum: a case study

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:29 +0100

Firth Park is the pilot extended school for Sheffield and is open from 7am–9pm daily for students and adult and community learning. We are also open in the holidays and at many weekends for focused student learning workshops and family learning weekends. The arts specialism and extended school initiatives have positively affected our school in relation to a belief in learning, community profile and raising self-esteem, self-confidence and aspirations.
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Relevance of storytelling in schools

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:29 +0100

A staffroom announcement that a storyteller is going to pay a visit won’t be met with much enthusiasm at most secondary schools. Certainly, cynics’ corner will mutter that it’s a bit ‘fluffy’ – little more than a headline grabber for the bulletin and a treat for the Year 7s.
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Visions of social enterprise in Liverpool

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:28 +0100

As with all the Every Child Matters outcomes, the emphasis on economic wellbeing comes with a wish that all children should enjoy, achieve and make a positive contribution. Enterprise is at the forefront and organisations are asked to find ways to work effectively together to help young people learn and thrive through focused economic activity.
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Building partnerships to boost creativity

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:28 +0100

Given almost all recent education reform allows space for creativity, now is the time to increase opportunities for your students to be creative – to increase motivation to learn and boost achievement. Creative Partnerships is a national initiative aimed at helping schools develop more creativity in their curriculum.
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Soundtracks for creativity

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:27 +0100

A few years ago, a study by Susan Hallam of Oxford Brookes Unviersity concluded that suitable music could aid creative writing in school. 54 pupils aged 9 to 11 were divided into three groups and were asked to write an exciting story. Each group did so with different musical accompaniment – exciting music, calming music and no music. The results were compared and the calming music produced better stories than either no music or exciting music.
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High-quality environments for learning

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:23 +0100

‘Education must come to be recognised as the product of complex interactions, many of which can be realised when the environment is a fully participating element.’
(Malaguzzi, 1998)
In this article we look in detail at some of the practical aspects of creating a high-quality learning environment which encourages exploration and discovery.
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Creativity for more able students

ewtemp — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:20 +0100

‘Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited, imagination encircles the world.’
Albert Einstein

Most people would agree that the ability to be creative is one of the most significant attributes that has allowed mankind to thrive in a rapidly changing world.

Defining creativity
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Encouraging communication, curiosity and creativity

ewtemp — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:19 +0100

Opportunities for communication
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Creativity in the curriculum

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:12 +0100

‘Creativity is the defeat of habit by originality’ Arthur Koestler
Many school leaders and teachers realise that is now time to take more control over the curriculum and to include a greater emphasis on creativity in the learning and teaching process.
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Enrichment activity – primary to secondary transition

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:11 +0100

When Hungarian children leave their primary school for secondary school they each are given a small felt bag, a little bit like a shoulder purse. The bag is made of felt with the national plant – paprika – printed in red against the soft creamy, oatmeal colour of the felt bag. The bag has a little shoulder string that allows the child to carry their bag over their shoulder if they wish to. The bag is also printed with the dates that they attended the school; the one I was given in Hungary has 1980-1988 printed on the bag flap.
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Six-hat thinking

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:06 +0100

Sometimes amazing things happen in schools that remind you why you became a teacher in the first place. This is how I felt after I had visited Chantry Primary School in Luton on a ‘learning walk’.

The learning walk

The learning walk is the name given to a programme that invites teachers into Chantry Primary School so that staff can share with them what they are doing for a morning.
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Enrichment activity – vocabulary, empathy, insight

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:05 +0100

Most masks offer an alter ego to the world: wild, wonderful, magical, fearsome and at times angelic. Our face can be a mask that we use to present a view we wish others to see.
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Valuing and developing creativity

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:51 +0100

Creativity and creative teaching are becoming part of the educational psyche but let’s set the concept of creativity within some kind of context. The government is beginning to recognise that young people need to develop the creative skills that will be necessary in the workplace of the future. Fast-moving technology and the increasing demands for flexibility and imagination mean that all our pupils need to be able to pose questions such as ‘what if …?’, ‘why?’ and ‘why not?’

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Primary geography: is it falling off the map?

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:51 +0100

The name ‘geography’ is to some degree one of the problems besetting this subject. We hold environment weeks, look at habitats (science), develop recycling schemes and pick up litter (PSHE) and possibly run a citizenship programme, all of which involve geographical thinking and skills but are often recorded under another name. It may well be that geography as a subject holds bad memories for teachers: who amongst the older generation managed to solve the problem of what a packet station was or how many frost-free days were needed in Canada to grow wheat?
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Multi-cultural Arts Day at Congleton High School

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:47 +0100

The day involved an experience of the art and music of a different culture. It links with the citizenship scheme of work in which we look at and celebrate diversity. This activity helped to address both the development of citizenship in the whole school development plan and to further embed the awareness of global citizenship within our school community.

Congleton is a small rural Cheshire town that has very little cultural diversity and therefore we felt that it was a particularly enriching experience for our students.
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Creativity at School: is it even possible?

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:45 +0100

The knowledge we have gained from recent discoveries about the ways people learn has become an integral part of their daily practice. I congratulate all those people who have proved to the world that it is possible to run a 'perfect' school.

So is creativity possible in schools?
The first right answer is YES; the second right answer is NO.
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