spart2

3SPART

DRAW IT MAKE IT DO IT

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IDEAS:

CREATE WORK BOOK, FOR IDEAS, EXERCISES, DRAFT WORK WHICH IS THEN TRANSFERRED ONTO THE BIG SHEET

DRAW ITMAKE ITDO IT

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CONVERSATION WITH T Birch-MachinHead of ICT / Computer Science

Belfairs AcademyLeigh-on-sea

Essex

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Do you think there's enough emphasis on creative thinking in the education system? Why?

Creativity underpins the differenated approach on emphasis of the individual student through making the curriculum accessible to all abilities regardless of learning styles (audio, visual or kinesthetic) so.. even though pedagogy promotes the absraction of topic through a creative approach many classroom practioners feel unable and indeed frustrated that they a. Dont have the time / resources to be creative there is a implicit requirement to be creative to deal with learners and progression. Also organisational culture can have a dramatic effect on creative emphasis. In theory yes there is a big emphasis on creative thinking both in delivery of lessons / topics and also in promoting creative thinking to broaden and deepen understanding - some schools say higher order thinking skills / some say creative reasoning..

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Do you think there should be more emphasis on it? Why?

I do believe there should be more emphasis on creative thinking. Students learn regardless of learning style by solving problems to solve any problem we need to first understand the problem through ingesting information, then process that information to apply it as knowledge. Once we can apply information as knowledge we have "learnt". Assessment of true learning can only be achieved through the ability to solve problems by apply knowledge. Problem solving can only be achieved through creative thinking. The key is that we need to information to be able to think creatively about a topic in order to process it into information. Now if you are talking about creativity par sa then I apologize but the same applies, pure creativity may be expressed as easily in the form of art as in the form of a mathimatical equation, so mathematicians need to be as creative as artist in thier thinking.

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Yes easy, teach not topics but study skills and allow students from year 7 to study whatever they like however they like, set chellenges to overcome and problems to solve allow the students the freedom, time and space to raise to these chellenges and problems. Teaching in the traditional form is counter productive but was the only option due to very limited information and creative resources available per digital. Education today is a legacy of a Victorian establishment built to keep children of the streets, 'education' was a secondly thought to stem boardom and keep control, it as been manipulated, assesed and used to all sorts of ends, very few of them anything to do with actual true learning / creatativity. Although creativity maybe viewed as dangerous to some and pointless to others. If the school system do not embrace and promte creativity then we have little control over students creataive outlets and therefore true learning. Although I believe that schools can promote creativity and creative thinking in the sense I think you mean by implimenting a cross curriculum approach to promoting creativity in all subjects and more importantly assessing creativity. The problem is students are not allowed to be creative "dint graffiti books", "design doesn't matter".. "its about planning and evaluation" - until we assess students using a mix of qualitative and quanative critria school cannot assess creativity as it's too subjective and qualative assessment doesn't translate into quanative data too easily, well not easily enough to be "consistent" so can't really be used to inform the current set of measurments that the education system uses to define a schools impact of a students learning.

Any ideas of how school could nourish creative thinking?

10 CONVERSATION WITH HARRIET - TEACHER AT COTHAM SCHOOL

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NOTES

• Book or something similar for teachers to make it as easy as possible for them to run

• Work out as much as you can about how its going to run before handing it over to the teacher

• Like the Olympics - new sport added every year

• Rules on how teachers should run it

• Short time-scale to keep pupils attention

• Step by step throughout a day rather than giving them the workshop straight away

• E.G.. starter in the morning

• Enhance all areas e.g. have part of project that aids maths

• Look into Plymouth ‘free’ school that teaches everything through making

• Design Technology could take this idea on as part of it’s curriculum

• Extension tasks - make pupils adapt to challenges e.g. if it’s raining on the day the sport is played

• Consider different ways in which people learn e.g. kinetic learning(?)

• PLAN / DO / REVIEW

• Thinking about thinking

• Make pupils evaluate ideas

• Multiple cycles of design

• Creativity in all areas

• Prompt cards

• Starter activities

• Determine which materials can be used

• Mystery object to be incorporated to promote new thinking in groups finding it to easy

• Design the whole day

• Instructions for the kids not the teachers

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• Do primary - easier all round

• Identify why it will benefit the teacher, pupil, school, future of society etc.

• Include every kind of skill

• Get kids feedback as they're the ones that really matter

• In business plan start with bigger picture working down to small

• Could ask kids what they think is wrong with existing sports to get them thinking

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RETHINKING SPART

AIMED AT: PRIMARY SCHOOL

SCHEDULE WHOLE DAY (MAKE IT EASY FOR TEACHERS)

MAKE IS CROSS CURRICULAR

INCLUDE LIFE SKILLS WHY WILL IT BENEFIT PUPIL / TEACHER / SCHOOL / NATION / FUTURE

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CROSS CURRICULAR

(BRITISH, EDUCATION) DENOTING OR RELATING TO AN APPROACH TO A TOPIC THAT INCLUDES CONTRIBUTIONS FROM SEVERAL DIFFERENT DISCIPLINES AND VIEWPOINTS

There are three general phases of teacher collaboration and interdisciplinary teaching:

• Aligned• Cooperative• Conceptual

ALIGNED COLLABORATION

To start collaboration, begin with alignment. The first thing to do is jump in and start wading in the same direction as your fellow teachers. Aligned collaboration is when a social studies department and the English department get together and agree that DBQ's (Document Based Questions) can count for English credit as well as social studies credit and then plan the year so that topics of study in history are taught concurrently with literary eras. In this way, students can construct a foundation, and are able to better generalize what is learned in history because they see the effect on literature.

COOPERATIVE COLLABORATION

You and your fellow teachers need to synchronize your strokes to match your pace. For example, a math and science teacher get together and decide on the best way and the best time to teach motion and cooperatively agree to help each other teach it, either separately or jointly. When the math teacher needs models to show students what the math is good for, he obtains them from the science teacher, and when the science teacher needs the students to perform mathematical calculations, she utilizes the same process the math teacher used just a week before. In this way, students understand math and science with their heads above water, rather than drowning in confusion.

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CONCEPTUAL COLLABORATION

Finally for conceptual collaboration, a teacher must dive into the deep water of conceptual understanding in the other content area. In other words, the teacher must know both subjects at high levels and be able to teach both conceptually. This is difficult for a single teacher to be expert in two subjects, so the solution is to combine forces and team teach.

Conceptual collaboration happens when an art teacher works closely with the science teacher and they both help students understand the effect of pigments and light by teaching together the science of wavelengths, the electromagnetic spectrum, and the dual nature of light. Or when a social studies and science teacher do a triple gainer into the deep end by team teaching a project-based learning activity of the renaissance period illustrating how history affects science and how science affects history.

As demonstrated above, we can promote deep learning by encouraging multiple teachers working together in helping students to understand math in the context of science, coordinating time-lines of scientific discovery and literature, and demonstrating how a painter uses light to express meaning. This is just like what happens to a river that is too fragmented into little streams. When the streams are channeled together it then can develop a deep flow. So it is with learning. When professional educators combine their energies and reinforce the same deep learning, the stream of information is clearer for the student, the learning activities are more fluid, and the student's reservoir of knowledge and skills fills faster.

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TIME-TABLE

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SPLIT DAY INTO:

AM / BEFORE BREAK

AM / AFTER BREAK

PM

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It’s a pleasure to welcome you and your child to our school. Our purpose is the transformation of students’ lives, enabling them to become the best they can be in all areas, achieving academically through a creative, purposeful education.Our specialism is the creative arts and these will be used to de-velop excellence in a broad and balanced curriculum, helping stu-dents achieve a foundation for later life.

The strength of partnership that we’re continuing to build with parents means we are – quite literally – making a school with you. We understand you are the experts in your child’s life, and we will make the time and space to listen to you about your child and their learning as they journey through our school.

We already have a great deal to be proud of in terms of student outcomes and we hold ambitious plans for the future. Our amazing staff team and a purpose-built space are only a small part of what makes the school special. Our purpose is ‘Creating Individuals, Making Futures’ and as such, everything we do is designed and in-tended to meet your child’s needs and aspirations.

Welcome to the Plymouth School of Creative Arts, the school we’re making together.

OUR SCHOOL

Plymouth School of Creative Arts is a 4-16 mainstream, city centre, all-through school sponsored by Plymouth College of Art. We opened our primary phase in Sep-tember 2013 and we have opened our second-ary phase in September 2014.Our vision for Plymouth School of Crea-tive Arts grows out of an established art college ethos in response to the seri-ous erosion of the arts and creativity in schools. Founded in 1856, Plymouth College of Art has a long history as an independ-ent specialist in arts, craft, design and media education in Plymouth and the South West.

Our school is a place for making things – making ideas, making technology, making art – for discovering how knowledge, val-ues and language, identity or experience is made. It is a place of performance in both senses: performance as doing; perfor-mance as achievement. A place of creative learning in all subjects.

Our goal is to secure academic excellence and our learners’ ambitions through struc-ture with a purpose, and our purpose can be described in just four words – Creating Individuals, Making Futures.

PLYMOUTH SCHOOL OF CREATIVE ARTS

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CURRICULUM

We offer a broad curriculum that provides opportunities to learn creatively across all subjects. Learning is underpinned by the process of making, performing and discovering and is supported by these core principles:

• THINKING FOR MYSELF• LEARNING TOGETHER• EMBRACING UNCERTAINTY• PLAY AND EXPERIMENTING• PURPOSEFUL PRACTICE

We start from a belief that we are all naturally creative but that over time creativity gets ‘untaught’.

A focus on contextual learning, learning by doing, learning by making, supports the development of new neural pathways and the reinforcement of these into helpful habits and mastery. That is good, purposeful learning. Creativity is an essential ingredient to learning and living well and supports our core purpose through transformation; Creating Individuals, Making Futures.

English and Maths are recognised as essential for every individual. Our approach to these core subjects will be the same as our approach to the whole curriculum. This is evidence- based, monitors progression for success, utilises creativity and the arts, and is purposeful. For example, in any written task it is essential that children have had a personal experience, have appropriate skills, a clear context for learning and an identified audience.

The importance of creativity in all subjects is demonstrated in real life whether you are a designer, a scientist or running your own business. Studying creatively and using the vehicle of the creative arts is not a soft or easy option. It’s about rigour and perseverance, finding new ways, communication and discovery, confidence and performance, learning from failures and using those failures to become even better.

Our assessment processes will be focused on the single purpose of improving outcomes for young people. This means we will have assessment systems embedded into our curriculum experience over a range of areas reflecting the core purpose of our school and our specialism in creativity and the arts.

Our staff will have specialism and talents that are utilised across the entire school. Our curriculum offer will be enhanced by our mutual, purposeful partnerships with our sponsor Plymouth College of Art and a broad range of organisations and countless individual practitioners.

We consider learning to extend beyond the walls of our school,and fully utilise the rich diversity of learning opportunities present in and around the city of Plymouth and from within our local community.

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PLYMOUTH SCHOOL OF CREATIVE ARTS

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Everyone processes and learns new information in different ways. There are three main cognitive learning styles: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. The common characteristics of each learning style listed below can help you understand how you learn and what methods of learning best fits you.

TYPES OF LEARNING

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THE SEVEN LEARNING STYLES

• Visual (spatial):You prefer using pictures, images, and spatial understanding.

• Aural (auditory-musical): You prefer using sound and music.

• Verbal (linguistic): You prefer using words, both in speech and writing.

• Physical (kinesthetic): You prefer using your body, hands and sense of touch.

• Logical (mathematical): You prefer using logic, reasoning and systems.

• Social (interpersonal): You prefer to learn in groups or with other people.

• Solitary (intrapersonal): You prefer to work alone and use self-study.

• Why Learning Styles? Understand the basis of learning styles

Your learning styles have more influence than you may realize. Your preferred styles guide the way you learn. They also change the way you internally represent experiences, the way you recall information, and even the words you choose. We explore more of these features in this chapter.

Research shows us that each learning style uses different parts of the brain. By involving more of the brain during learning, we remember more of what we learn. Researchers using brain-imaging technologies have been able to find out the key areas of the brain responsible for each learning style.

For example:

Visual: The occipital lobes at the back of the brain manage the visual sense. Both the occipital and parietal lobes manage spatial orientation.

Aural: The temporal lobes handle aural content. The right temporal lobe is especially important for music.

Verbal: The temporal and frontal lobes, especially two specialized areas called Brocaï¿½s and Wernickeï¿½s areas (in the left hemisphere of these two lobes).

Physical: The cerebellum and the motor cortex (at the back of the frontal lobe) handle much of our physical movement.

Logical: The parietal lobes, especially the left side, drive our logical thinking.

Social: The frontal and temporal lobes handle much of our social activities. The limbic system (not shown apart from the hippocampus) also influences both the social and solitary styles. The limbic system has a lot to do with emotions, moods and aggression.

Solitary: The frontal and parietal lobes, and the limbic system, are also active with this style.

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During this program, you’ll devoted to planning time see children actively partici- (plan), work time (do), pating in the plan-do-review and recall time (review). process — you’ll watch children make plans, carry them out, and reflect on what they have done.

The first part of this program provides an overview of plan-do-review; the next three parts look at each com- ponent of the plan-do-review process in greater detail.

Plan-Do-Review

AN OVERVIEW

During plan-do-review, children learn to take initiative, solve problems, work with others, and accomplish their goals. In doing so, children see that they can make things happen and that their choices and ideas are respected. This helps them develop self- confidence and a sense of control and independence. As children gain experience with plan-do-review, their language becomes increasingly detailed and complex, At planning time children meet in small groups with an adult. Each child then decides what to do during work time and then shares this plan with the adult and others in the group. During work time children carry out their plans, alone and/or with others, and then clean up. At recall time, the last of the three-part sequence, children meet again with their planning-time group to share and discuss what they did and learned during work time. The segments of plan- do-review always occur in the same order, and the entire sequence occurs at the same time each day.

PLANNING TIME (PLAN)

When young children plan, they develop specific ideas about what they want to do, how they will do it, and with whom they will play.

PLAN / DO / REVIEW

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ACTIVITIES FOR PLANNING AND RECALL TIMES

Different types of activities can keep planning and recall times fun and engaging. Remember, however, that these activities spur and keep children’s interest, but it is the adult’s interaction strategies that help children better form and express their plans and recollections. Activities demonstrated in this media program include:

Visibility games and tours — concrete ways to show children the interest areas and materials

Props — toys or easily made materials that can be used to help children share their plans

Partnerships — when one child describes his or her plan to a partner and the children then switch roles

Group games — simple activities that help to determine whose turn it will be to plan next

Representations — when children express their plans by using symbols, photos, pantomime, drawings, or writing, along with talking

Depending on their age and development, children might express their plan in actions (e.g., picking up a block), gestures (pointing to the block area), or words (e.g., “I want to make a tall, tall building — like where my mommy works”).Things you can do at planning time to help children with their plans include:

• Dividing children into small groups

• Inviting each child to share what he or she wants to do

• Allowing enough time for planning

• Using interesting activities (see sidebar for activity descriptions) to keep children engaged

• Considering children’s developmental levels (see sidebar for more information)

• Connecting your planning strategy to the child’s plan

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PLAN / DO / REVIEW

WORK TIME (DO)

Work time —the “do” part of plan-do-review — is when children carry out their plans. Children use materials creatively at work time, repeating and building upon activities that interest them; there are no preset activities. They solve problems encountered in play and work independently and with others. Children also may move materials from one area of the classroom to another. Cleanup time, which is at the end of work time and lasts about 10 minutes, encour- ages children to share the responsibility of putting away classroom materials and helps them learn the organization of the classroom and the locations of specific materials.

You can help children make the most of work time by:

• Providing easily accessible interest areas with a variety of materials

• Involving children in solving problems with materials and space con- straints

• Observing and listening to children as they play

• Playing with the children, participating as partners in their play

• Recording your obser- vations, so you have information for future planning

RECALL TIME (REVIEW)

Recall time, which imme- diately follows the work time–cleanup time sequence, brings closure to the plan- do-review process. In their small groups, adults encourage children to reflect on, talk about, and/or show what they have done at work time. When children recall, they discover that they can make things happen, learn new things, and solve their own problems.

Children’s Development Levels in Plan-Do-ReviewChildren’s planning and recall skills will move from the simple and concrete to the more complex and abstract, with your support, as they become familiar with the plan-do-review process.

As children develop and have more experience with planning time, they will begin to form mental images of activities that have not occurred yet and will be able to express their plan and add details without having to see what they will be playing with. Dur- ing recall time, younger preschoolers often recall the last thing they did, since it is freshest in their minds. Older preschoolers, however, are more able to recall the sequence of what they did at work time. Your planning and recall strategies, therefore, will need to reflect this change so that children are encour- aged to plan and recall in more complex ways.

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You can support children at recall time by:

• Meeting back in the same group

• Making recall a group process, so children can listen and contribute to their classmates’ recollections

• Listening to children and asking open-ended questions

• Taking your time

• Using activities (see sidebar for activity descriptions) to keep children engaged

• Considering children’s developmental levels (see sidebar for more information)

• Using your interaction strategies to make a clear connection to what each child did at work time (e.g., if you are using a die as a prop for recall time, say, “You rolled a 3 — tell me three things about what you did at work time”)

Questions to Think About While Viewing the Program:

1. What do you notice about how the adults in this program interact with the children during plan-do- review?

2. Which activities do think you might use in your classroom for planning and recall times? Why?

3. How do the adults in this program support children during work time?

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Teaching life skills to primary school students prepares them for adulthood and the responsibilities they will have as they get older. Life skills allow students to have more successful experiences when it comes to things like building and maintaining relationships, money management, time management and staying organised. As a primary schoolteacher, include life skills education in your curriculum so that students benefit from academic and nonacademic lessons.

LIFE SKILLS

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MONEY MANAGEMENT SKILLS

Money management is a basic life skills step for students in primary school to learn. It is also a lesson that can be integrated with math class in terms of counting, sorting and basic arithmetic. Children should be aware of how to manage money when they start attending school, as money smarts will allow them to make informed decisions about how to spend money on things such as lunch and snacks. For older students who already know how to keep track of money, a basic step in money management may be a lesson about balancing a checkbook or understanding and calculating interest.

ORGANIZATIONAL SKILLS

Organizational skills are life skills that apply directly to a student's academic -- and nonacademic -- success. They can be taught early to a crowd of kindergartners or revisited with students in fifth and sixth grade. The age of the students you are teaching will determine how you incorporate organizational life skills into the curriculum. For young kids, begin with the basic step of keeping their desks tidy. You can accomplish this by giving students five minutes at the beginning and end of class to straighten up and organise their desks. This will get them into the habit of having an uncluttered school work environment. With older kids in a primary school, teach them about the basics of organising homework assignments and how to keep their class notes in order.

RELATIONSHIP SKILLS

Students in primary school have relationships with their classmates, friends, teachers, parents and other children and adults in their lives. Design your classroom curriculum to include basic issues, such as maintaining personal boundaries with others, communicating in a way that is appropriate and practicing proper etiquette when it comes to social interactions, like shaking hands.

HEALTHY LIFE CHOICES

Health is an important life skill that teachers should educate students about starting in primary school. Children must learn about such things as the importance of maintaining good oral hygiene by brushing their teeth, as well as how to make smart food decisions. It is never too early to teach kids about nutrition, as Casey Family Programs explains in their "Ready, Set, Fly!" parental curriculum. Basic steps include educating primary school students about the food pyramid, how to read nutrition labels, how to tell if something is not healthy and how to plan daily menus.

TRANSPORTATION SKILLS

With school buses at your fingertips, it is easy to teach primary school students about transportation life skills. Kids who know how to use public transportation can get around efficiently and effectively, which can also be useful for emergency situations. Have students practice using the school bus, or teach them about public buses and how to use them. You can also discuss the way that taxis work.

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Decision making

Problem solving

Creative thinking

Critical thinking

Effective communication

Interpersonal relationship skills

Self-awareness

Empathy

Coping with emotions

Coping with stress

Life skills are abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour, that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life.Described in this way, skills that can be said to be life skills are innumerable, and the nature and definition of life skills are likely to differ across cultures and settings. However, analysis of the life skills field suggests that there is a core set of skills that are at the heart of skills-based initiatives for the promotion of the health and well-being of children and adolescents. These are listed below:

LIFE SKILLS

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DECISION MAKING helps us to deal constructively with decisions about our lives. This can have consequences for health if young people actively make decisions about their actions in relation to health by assessing the different options, and what effects different decisions may have.

Similarly, PROBLEM SOLVING enables us to deal constructively with problems in our lives. Significant problems that are left unresolved can cause mental stress and give rise to accompanying physical strain.

CREATIVE THINKING contributes to both decision making and problem solving by enabling us to explore the available alternatives and various consequences of our actions or non-action. It helps us to look beyond our direct experience, and even if no problem is identified, or no decision is to be made, creative thinking can help us to respond adaptively and with flexibility to the situations of our daily lives.

CRITICAL THINKING is an ability to analyse information and experiences in an objective manner. Critical thinking can contribute to health by helping us to recognise and assess the factors that influence attitudes and behaviour, such as values, peer pressure, and the media.

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION means that we are able to express ourselves, both verbally and non-verbally, in ways that are appropriate to our cultures and situations. This means being able to express opinions and desires, but also needs and fears. And it may mean being able to ask for advice and help in a time of need.

INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIP SKILLS help us to relate in positive ways with the people we interact with. This may mean being able to make and keep friendly relationships, which can be of great importance to our mental and social well-being. It may mean keeping good relations with family members, which are an important source of social support. It may also mean being able to end relationships constructively.

SELF-AWARENESS includes our recognition of ourselves, of our character, of our strengths and weaknesses, desires and dislikes. Developing self-awareness can help us to recognise when we are stressed or feel under pressure. It is also often a prerequisite for effective communication and interpersonal relations, as well as for developing empathy for others.

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EMPATHY is the ability to imagine what life is like for another person, even in a situation that we may not be familiar with. Empathy can help us to understand and accept others who may be very different from ourselves, which can improve social interactions, for example, in situations of ethnic or cultural diversity. Empathy can also help to encourage nurturing behaviour towards people in need of care and assistance, or tolerance, as is the case with AIDS sufferers, or people with mental disorders, who may be stigmatized and ostracized by the very people they depend upon for support.

COPING WITH EMOTIONS involves recognising emotions in ourselves and others, being aware of how emotions influence behaviour, and being able to respond to emotions appropriately. Intense emotions, like anger or sorrow can have negative effects on our health if we do not react appropriately.

COPING WITH STRESS is about recognising the sources of stress in our lives, recognising how this affects us, and acting in ways that help to control our levels of stress. This may mean that we take action to reduce the sources of stress, for example, by making changes to our physical environment or lifestyle. Or it may mean learning how to relax, so that tensions created by unavoidable stress do not give rise to health problems.

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FOLLOW UP EMAIL

Hi Trystan and Ellie

Really nice to meet you both today and to hear about the project. I’m excited about the possibilities and I think there’s a lot of potential.

In the mean time, here’s a few links/things that might help. You might have already seen some of this, so apologies if it’s not new.

“In view of the current economic imperative to develop innovation, governments are taking a more active stance in calling for creativity across all disciplines” (Gustina and Sweet, 2014, p.48)Gustina and Sweet paper attached - a very recent take on creativity that might help the business case.

Here is a good definition for the creative process from Sweden’s National Agency for Education:

- Investigative work (the student pursues a problem across several works or experiments, feels challenged rather than discouraged by difficulties)- Inventiveness (the students sets up problems, tries new solutions, is willing to take risks)- The ability to use models (the student actively searches out models to emulate)- For self-assessment (the student describes and reflects on different qualities in his or her work)

If your tasks can make sure there is encouragement of this - it would be good.

Could also look at some of the skills highlighted by BLP http://www.buildinglearningpower.co.uk/

(sorry about the diagram - there’s an insight into the the quality of design in education!)

Building Learning Power Brain (4 R's)

In terms of metacognition (thinking about thinking) there is a lot of research to suggest that this improves learning. There is alot of overlap with the creative process so think about making sure there is a chance for students to notice their own learning - having a strategy, problem solving, evaluating and modifying).

I think covering both the cross-curricular learning and the skills element would be powerful.

That’s all for now, will send more things as I think of them.

Feel free to drop me an email any time.

Harriet

EMAIL CORRESPONDANCE