Creative Partnerships

CERI Innovation Strategy: Education for innovation

Paris May 23 -24 2011

What does CCE do?

“All the education and innovation systems of Europe now face the same challenges and yet there are few mechanisms in place to allow them to learn from each other”

Creative Partnerships

Each Year in UK

•2500 schools

•300,000 pupils

Creative Partnerships SloughMontem School projectPhotographer: Lesley Young

Other Programmes - Prevent Programme

-City of Amsterdam

-Artists in Creative Education

-Creative Partnerships in Lithuania, Hamburg, Czech Republic

-Macedonia

How do we do it?

“We want to unlock the creative potential of young people in order to prepare them to be the innovators of the future”Teacher, Creative Partnerships – Durham and Sunderland

• Schools apply to be in the programme.

• They identify an issue in the School

Improvement Plan

•We allocate a Creative agent

•They identify and implement a programme

Reinterpret the CurriculumThistley Hough School Stoke

Give the pupils the responsibility

Kingsland Primary, Stoke

Put them in charge

What impact does it have?

“It has helped me because I

now concentrate more than

I used to. It’s been the best

experience of my life”

Student, Creative Partnerships – Kent

The Impact …. ……on young people (NFER)

NFER are tracking 13,000 young people who have participated in Creative Partnerships programmes

‘For all three key stages the progress of young people who attended Creative Partnerships schools and who were known to have taken part in Creative Partnerships activities was statistically significantly greater than that of other young people in the same schools.’

The Impact …. ……on young people (BMRB)

• 91% of head teachers have seen an improvement in pupils’ confidence and communication skills

• 87% have seen an improvement in pupils’ motivation

• 78% of head teachers have seen an increase in pupils’ ability to learn independently

• 79% felt that Creative Partnerships has improved attainment at the school

The Impact …. ……on teachers (BMRB)

• 94% of head teachers have seen an improvement in the teaching skills of their teachers

• 92% can see their teachers to be more effective in using creative professionals in the classroom

• 92% can see that their teachers are more willing to take a creative approach

The Impact …. ……on young people (BMRB)

• The impact is greatest in schools in the most deprived wards

The Impact …. ……on parents (CLPE)

The creative curriculum can have a positive impact on home-school communication

“Children’s enthusiasm for creative projects leads them to talk at home about what they do in school and parents in turn become enthusiastic about what the school offers.”

The Impact …. ……on parents (CLPE)

Parents believe that creative projects can motivate children to be in school and have a significant, long-term impact on children’s confidence, skills, wider learning, overall development and life chances.

“…parents see a creative curriculum providing real opportunities for ‘personalised learning’ where children thrive as individual learners within group activities, and that a creative curriculum gives children ‘an outlook on ambition’ by providing real-life contacts and contexts for leaning and skills.”

The Impact …. ……on attendance (NFER)

“ Engagement with Creative Partnerships was associated with an educationally significant reduction in total absence rates over time. Absence rates in schools participating in Creative Partnerships were less than that of comparable non-engaged schools.”

The Impact …. ……on young people (Ofsted)

- Schools in challenging circumstances 1 those with a higher than average proportion of pupils eligible for free schools meals, low attainment on entry and high rates of pupil mobility 1 showed the greatest improvements in pupils’ ability .

The Impact …. ……on young people (Ofsted)

• The vast majority of pupils directly involved enjoyed their education in and through CP: good behaviour, co-operation, enthusiasm and pride were common outcomes.

The Impact …. ……on young people (Ofsted)

- “ In schools with good teaching, there is not a conflict between the National Curriculum, national standards in core subjects and creative approaches to learning. In the schools which were visited for this survey, careful planning had ensured that the prescribed curriculum content for each subject was covered within a broad and flexible framework and key skills were developed. These examples were accompanied by better than average achievement and standards or a marked upward trend. .”

The Impact …. ……on teachers (Ofsted)

• Among schools visited for the survey that had been, or still were, engaged with the Creative Partnerships programme, there had been notable improvements in their levels of achievement and in measurable aspects of personal development, such as attendance

The Impact …. ……on teachers (NFER)

• The majority (62%) of respondents reported that Creative Partnerships had greater impact on their professional development when compared with other initiatives and programmes in which they have engaged.

The Impact …. ……on teachers (NFER)

• enhanced confidence to try new things and to ‘have a go’

• provision of skills to help children to be more creative

• enhanced enthusiasm for their job

• development of the curriculum in their key stage, department or school

• communication and sharing of their learning with other teaching colleagues

• development of skills for leading projects.

• development of skills for working with creative professionals

What are the challenges in embedding this in education ?

“They have already displayed thinking and teamworking skills which are far beyond those of their peers; there is no question that they have a headstart!”Teacher, Creative Partnerships – Kent

The Challenge …. • The ability of young learners and school staff confidently to discuss

subjects such as creativity and creative skills development was an indicator both of embedded practice and of the capacity to sustain creative learning and teaching. However, this was only found in a minority of schools.

• This was in contrast to the confidence with which teachers discuss attainment, performance and behaviour and have a sophisticated language available to them to describe the progress individual children and young people are making in these areas.

The Challenge ….

• As a consequence the programme runs the risk of being diverted from its key purpose – the unlocking of creativity.

The Challenge …. • So we have commissioned a further study – in partnership with

OECD - to build our understanding of creativity in young people and the ways its development and progression can be better recognised in individual pupils at school.

• This research will explore the viability of a tool or framework for the assessment of creative learning in school age learners by testing a model derived from key literature and existing practice within a number of Creative Partnerships schools and broader literature and study.

The Challenge ….

What we hope to establish is:

• A language around creativity – one with which teachers without a special interest in creativity would feel comfortable and able to use.

• The observability of creative behaviours derived from that language.

• The extent to which these observable behaviours progress.

The Future ….

We have also commissioned research – to completed in the Autumn - on well being and happiness .

We are developing a video archive of ‘creative behaviours’ for debate.

We have a unique database which we have only just begun to mine and we are seeking partners who would be interested in working with us.

All images contained in this presentation are protected by copyright and as such cannot be reproduced without prior permission.