Bolton Diversity Explored Through Creativity
Enquiry Question: ‘How can the creative partnership support the school in developing a greater awareness and understanding of Bolton’s diverse community?'
The project with Eagley Infants School in Bolton, Greater Manchester, was predominantly concerned with the creative process rather than an end product. The children worked with unfamiliar natural materials using a range of techniques which were new to them, including shadow puppetry, felt making, water on water painting, silk printing, and making scenes using large junk materials and willow structures. The project culminated with an Arts afternoon with the community link school where the children worked collaboratively on the activities they had experienced with the Creative Practitioner.
Children’s learning was judged against a criteria of essential skills. Children working on activities were observed to be working at the silver level, expectations for lower KS2. For example, a group of children co-operated with each other to make a woodland scene. A child delegated roles and the others followed her lead. They were all able to discuss their scene and explain what was happening.
Project objectives
To investigate the use of Arts to develop deeper thinking skills for Year 1 children and to explore how these essential skills could also be developed.
Results
Children’s creative skills improved as they were given opportunities to work with unfamiliar materials using skills that were new to them. Children learned to work with willow and a group persevered to make a structure and others worked on this activity independently. Children developed relationships with children from another setting and explained the activities they had worked on through Creative Partnerships.
The experience enabled staff to focus on individuals and listen carefully. This dialogue led to opportunities in other areas of the curriculum, for example, a visit from a farm. It was beneficial to observe the Creative Practitioner questioning the children as they were exposed to unfamiliar materials and techniques. Staff now have high expectations of children’s knowledge and the project led to staff increasing their expectations of children’s learning skills.
