Items tagged as "primary"
‘Do Questions Live Under the Sea?’ took place in 2009/10 at Parson Cross Church of England Primary School as part of the Creative Partnerships Enquiry programme.
Enquiry Question
How can we develop children’s questioning skills and what impact does this have on their ability to follow their own lines of enquiry?
Programme Theme
The school wanted to find out if it was possible to teach independent questioning skills through the project. The Year 2 children’s questioning skills seemed to be a weakness and a barrier to them following their own lines of enquiry within the school’s new Creative Curriculum.
The children chose the theme of ‘Under the Sea’. As part of the planning stage the children made a three-part Question Machines with visual artist Carmel Page to model the process of creating questions;
Part 1: Use a spinner to select a ‘question’ word
Part 2: Throw a ball into a selection box to choose an ‘Under the Sea’ theme word
Part 3: Throw a dice on a board game to select an ‘action’ word
An open-ended project was designed. Questions generated by the pupils guided and prompted a range of activities. The project began by making props and costumes which allowed the children to get into character for an under the sea experience.
Other creative and child-led activities followed, including; costume making, creating sea monsters, an undersea scene in the playground, storytelling, drama and dance to explore mermaids and what it would be like to play football under the sea.
Children’s reflection skills were developed by using the TASC (Thinking Actively in a Social Context) wheel and reflecting on the learning at the end of each session.
Parson Cross staff took part in a CPD (Continuing Professional Development) session ran by the lead teacher and Carmel, the aim being to share the project and look at how the impact of teaching and learning in this way can influence the development, within school, of the Creative Curriculum. The project became a model for the rest of the teaching staff, having seen the work in Year 2, Year 4 decided to build their own question machine – staff planned together to develop questioning skills and the Creative Curriculum for Year 4 pupils.
Useful Sources:
• Click here to see a visual representation of the ‘Question Machine’ project (page 13-15)
• http://www.tascwheel.com/
Focus Group
Year 2
Key Outcomes
• Improved questioning skills
• Increased curiosity
• Improved attitude to learning
• Improved teaching and learning of the creative curriculum by using the TASC wheel
Comments
• Since the project, we have followed the work up with another creative project on nocturnal animals. Without being asked children went home and started to research the project and brought things in to share – this has never happened before… The children were more willing to start the project on their own. They got on with things without support and used questions to guide their research (Teacher)
• The pupil’s curiosity improved as the project progresses, by the end of the project when pupils were presented with an unusual object, the amount and variety of questions had greatly increased (Practitioner)
• Children are now quite able to use the TASC Wheel – they are able to identify where they are on the wheel and reflect on their work to see if they were ready to move forward (Teacher)
‘Arts Explorers’ is an action research programme – primarily looking at ways of encouraging families with primary school aged children to get involved in arts and cultural activities. The programme is funded by Creativity, Culture and Education (CCE) and managed nationally by CapeUK. Please click here to view the Arts Explorer National Report.
Arts Explorers in Kirklees – An exploration of the cultural ecology of a single neighbourhood
Four pathfinders have been commissioned to provide additional evidence about ‘what works’ in the engagement of primary school aged children and their families. The Birkby pathfinder is being delivered at a local level by CapeUK and Kirklees Council’s Children and Young People Service.
Birkby lies just outside the centre of Huddersfield in Kirklees. They explored whether families’ uptake of arts/cultural activity can be increased by providing low risk ‘first steps’ at natural meetings places within the community, such as shops, playgroups and the health centre? Please click here to read more about the activities and findings of the Birkby pathfinder.
‘Flying High in Literacy’ took place in 2009/10 at Windhill Primary School as part of the Creative Partnerships Enquiry programme.
Enquiry Question
How can a cross-curricular approach involving visual art and literacy impact on Year 4 pupils’ achievement in writing?
Programme Theme
The school wanted to engage children in independently improving their literacy skills through the development of a more creative and inspiring cross-curricular approach to teaching and learning. Artist and educationalist Ryan Morley (Bird & Bee) was chosen to work with the school on the project.
A mysterious balloon (attached to an airmail envelope and a red tag) was seen by the pupils from the classroom window. They discovered it was from a young girl from the Svalbard Islands in Norway. Iza Jayer desperately wanted to enter a competition of a lifetime to win a hot air balloon flight to England. To win she needed to improve her writing skills and complete 5 tasks. The red tag told of the hopes and fears she had about her literacy.
Iza asked if whoever finds her balloon could RSVP to her to help with her literacy skills. The children responded wonderfully, writing to Iza about their own lives, interests and their own issues with literacy. They also released their own balloons tied to tags containing their literacy hopes and fears.
Correspondence with Iza continued as she asked them for help with the different competition tasks. The pupils designed and made model hot air balloons and wrote about where they would visit. They went on their own role-play imaginary journey in a hot air balloon, made storyboard maps, wrote about their journeys and wrote an exciting poem about ‘flight’. The children researched carrier pigeons and sent their own ‘pigeon post’ with the help of ‘the pigeon people’ from the local pigeon society. Throughout the project the pupils used learning logs to assess and reflect on their own learning. The project culminated in a celebration assembly and balloon party attended by lots of parents and Iza Jayer herself!
The lead teacher will be delivering staff training sessions to ensure that creative learning continues to flourish within the school.
Useful Sources:
Click here to open ‘Flying High in Literacy’ Publication PDF, Ryan Morley & Windhill Primary School
Focus Group
Year 4
Key Outcomes
• Raised achievement in literacy
• Increased pupil motivation
• Growth in pupil confidence and enthusiasm
• Improved teacher confidence to plan and deliver a creative curriculum
Comments
• The attainment scores speak for themselves; most children went up 2 points in their attainment levels in writing, with only 2 children going up 1 point, and 1 child going up 3 points! – Quite an achievement (practitioner)
• We’ve done so many new things…. I feel like I’m good at literacy (pupil)
• Children took ownership of the project and were able to come up with ideas themselves (teacher)
• There has been a noticeable improvement in the children’s confidence to face a task, now they are willing to have a go without fear of failure (teacher)
• They [pupils] are now much more willing to take part in a piece of sustained writing, as they are now actually enjoying it (teacher)
• It improved their self esteem, especially evident with the lower ability children (teacher)
• The children had to step back and assess their work, which made them more critical but also helped them achieve fantastic results (practitioner)
• It really made me want to write stories (pupil)
• I am now doing this [planning] completely differently as I am trying to use the children’s learning experiences as well as their learning outcomes to change my daily planning (teacher)
The Gadget Show took place in 2009/10 at Kings Oak Primary Learning Centre as part of the Creative Partnerships Change programme.
Enquiry Question
What is the impact of risk taking on the staff’s confidence in delivering a creative curriculum and on personal, learning and thinking skills in children?
Programme Theme
The school wanted to investigate risk-taking and its effects via the delivery of a creative curriculum, whilst including literacy and numeracy in the project.
Digital media company ‘Fowler and Sumner’ worked in partnership with the year 3 and 4 team. Creative activities were designed encouraging the children to think differently and devise different topic ideas. These were scored according to level of interest/risk and from this ‘The Gadget Show’ theme emerged.
Children formed their own companies and were made responsible for their own success. They had to work as a team to allocate roles, devise a name, logo and catchphrase for the company and design their gadgets. Products also had to be marketed, with podcasts, TV adverts, t-shirts, business cards and one-minute lift pitches.
‘Thunks’ (questions with no right or wrong answer – Ian Gilbert) were introduced in class to get the children thinking more creatively and seeing things in a different light, these were even used at the beginning of staff meetings to stimulate discussion.
The project culminated in a Gadget Show at the school; each company had their own stand to pitch to parents, members of the community and governors. The guests were given a fictional currency to invest in the company they thought had the best product and pitch.
In 2010/11 the school will be working with all staff to develop the approach across the whole teaching staff.
Focus Group
Years 3 and 4
Key Outcomes
• A more creative approach to lesson planning and delivery.
• Increased pupil confidence and motivation.
Teacher Comments
• It was good to be out of our comfort zones altogether; by that I mean the teachers, teaching assistants, creative practitioners and the children. It was a learning curve that we all went through together and we all learnt a lot from each other. I learnt that that sometimes the children have a better idea than you and that you don’t always have the answers.
• I have taken risks my delivering sessions in ways I would usually be unsure about.
• I am now aware of techniques I can use to encourage pupil thinking
• Facilitating a lesson can be as powerful as teaching a lesson.
• Children are approaching tasks with increasing confidence even when they don’t know what the answer or outcome is.
• Children are more confident in sharing their ideas with the class.
• The children learnt to value each other’s comments and realise that is wasn’t just the teacher that they were learning from.
• The children’s attitude to learning has changed dramatically, particularly that of our less engaged children.
• The less academically able children discovered that they could participate more easily.
Let’s Get Together took place in 2009/10 at Southey Green Community Primary School as part of the Creative Partnerships Change programme.
The Enquiry Question was "How can creativity through the arts and technology be used to stimulate wider community involvement?"
Programme Theme
The school wanted to investigate whole community involvement within the school, using ICT as a driver. Musician and digital artist Maxwell Thomas came into the school to stimulate children’s imaginations and thinking about the local area, and also to help develop the ICT skills of the staff and pupils. Children from Year 1 and Year 5 worked together creating music, dance and artwork for a Southey Carnival week.
Parents joined the children on an exploration around the estate, starting with the school and going out into the local community and investigating different areas such as; the park, shops, library and fire station. The children conducted interviews at each of these locations and found out what they were like now, in the past and what they may be like in the future. Role play weeks were then used to recreate what life would be like in the past and in the future. A party was held for each era, parents and their children made costumes together and took part in games.
“We have never had so many parents into school before” (Class Teacher)
Children created sonic postcards, collages of recorded sounds gathered from each location. A drive-through documentary was made about Southey including memories from different years. Children also created and recorded a song for Southey Green with their parents.
The project culminated in the creation of a time machine, inspired by the exploration of the children's surroundings and housing a collection of short films created by and featuring the children.
A time machine school tour was launched in an exciting celebration assembly with a smoke machine, lights and sound effects, culminating in a time machine visit to the local community library.
In 2010/11 the school will be looking at ways to develop new skills across the whole school staff and how to sustain community involvement.
Key Outcomes
• Increased parental engagement
• A more creative approach to lesson planning and delivery
• Increased pupil confidence and motivation
• Increased pupil attendance in all participating classes
Teacher Comments
• The school saw an impact on community participation when the arts were used in context with that community.
• We feel we have developed new ways of engaging parents and will be building these into our everyday practice.
• Parents seem on the whole to find the teachers more approachable since the project.
• The older children found it liberating to pass on knowledge to the younger children.
• The biggest unexpected outcome was the buzz and continued work that came out of the project after the delivery finished
**PRESS RELEASE** Distributed 20/07/2010
Young people from Lapage Primary School, Bradford have just heard that their film ‘Egyptian Madness’ has been selected for screening at the Co-operative Film- Festival in October.
The film was made by local school children as part of their Creative Partnerships Change School project which is delivered by CapeUK in West and South Yorkshire. A team of artists and media professionals from ‘InspirEd’ introduced the pupils to script writing, acting, filming, set design, illustration, make-up and music.
Dawn Feather, Lead Artist from InspirEd says; “We’re really proud of the end result as it’s a great example of how creative artists, teachers and students can work together to produce something truly amazing. This is fantastic news and will be a really great opportunity for the children who contributed to the project to see their work on the big screen – it’s a really nice reward for all their hard work!”
This Creative Partnerships project has been delivered by CapeUK in partnership with InspirEd, bcbradio and creative practitioners; Tim Curtis, Zoe Parker, Paula Horton and Noel Watkins.
Dame Naila Zaffar Executive Headteacher of Lapage Primary School; "Creative Partnerships has been a success because children from Year 3 and 4 worked together in teams and staff and children got the opportunity to work alongside the skilled team of artists. The skills, knowledge and understanding children gained about "Eygyptians" through first-hand experience will be used in their future learning. The good work was shared by inviting parents to walk through the Egyptian Corridor which celebrated their child's work."
Each year The Co-operative gives young people the chance to have their short films shown on big screen at the prestigious Co-operative Film Festival. The screening will be on Friday the 8th of October at the National Media Museum in Bradford. If you can’t wait until then you can view the film at www.inspiredworkshops.co.uk/video/
Madeline Irwin, CapeUK West Yorkshire Programme Director; “This is a wonderful example of CapeUK’s Creative Partnerships projects taking place across Yorkshire. Creative Partnerships inspires young people, creative practitioners, teachers and parents alike – giving these fantastic opportunities to be creative and access culture.”
Also celebrating the schools success is bcbradio – Tuesday 20th and Thursday 22nd July between 18:00 – 18:30 there will be a Lapage Radio Festival on BCB 106.6fm.
——ENDS——– For more information please contact; Jo Jessop, Communications Coordinator, CapeUK – 0845 450 3700
Towards Creative and Cultural Development – reports from the front line….
The ‘new’ primary curriculum emphasised the significance of creativity and cultural access and development. It saw this as an entitlement for all and prescribed ways to encourage pupils’ and teachers’ understanding of creativity in the classroom. This report was, and still is, designed to offer specific advice on thinking and action for primary schools at this time of national change.
Good learning is rooted in being proactive, excited and challenged by the process, fascinated by the content and motivated by the outcome of the work. This lies at the heart of creativity and drives cultural development – and good teaching builds on this. Whatever shape the curriculum takes, this will always be a key driver in the learner / teacher relationship.
