Try Your Best or Be The Best?
Through a process of enquiry based learning facilitated by creative practitioners, how far and in what ways can creative activities impact on social behavior?
The project at North Cheshire Jewish Primary School in Stockport, Greater Manchester, involved 33 children, 10 boys and 23 girls, from Year 1 along with 2 Class Teachers, 2 Creative Practitioners and 1 Creative Agent.
Over 2 planning days, the Creative Pracitioners planned a variety of creative activities, which allowed children to participate in team games. Creative activity encouraged children to think about their own personal lives. They wrote thoughts and feelings in a learning journal and described them through drawings or words. A special African cloth on loan from Manchester Museum, The Adire cloth, was introduced. Children were told the story behind the cloth and what the symbols in the squares represented.
Children used their drawings from the learning journals to draw onto cloth squares using markers and inks. These squares were then sewn together to make one large bank of symbols, like the Adire cloth.
Another of the Creative Practitioners worked with the children to plan and produce a drama production around the story of the Adire cloth. Children decided which parts they would play in the making of the production; including box office staff, designers, actors and producers. Parents were invited to see the final performance.
Children found it difficult taking risks at the beginning of the project. They were very unsure especially about the drama activities where they had to work with different people and make their own decisions. The usually confident children struggled to think and speak to the group and the quieter children seemed to speak out a lot more.
"I felt worried at the beginning, because I didn’t want to make a mistake. But now I don’t mind if I make a mistake." Pupil
Impact
By the end of the project, all children had learnt new techniques and terminology. They had all used the learning journals to reflect and think about ideas.
Evidence was collected through videos, photographs and questionnaires to parents and pupils before and after the project. The children were interviewed both during and after the project.
The benefits of this project to pupils included:
- to be more confident taking risks;
- to learn to reflect on their own ideas;
- to work in teams with different children;
- to make their own decisions;
- to learn new terminology and techniques;
- to show their work to parents and rest of the school.
The benefits of this project to teachers included:
- to be more creative with pupil voice;
- to be more open and free with planning activities;
- to not be as structured with class management;
- to use learning journals as a process for learning;
- to acknowledge excellent partnerships with practitioners;
- to have an opportunity to observe and see learning taking place.
Results
The school will now use learning journals in other projects as a reflective tool. Planning will involve more pupil voice especially at the beginning of topics. Focus shift on activities which give children opportunities for taking risks and building confidence will be made. Digital media will be utilised to enhance all these points.
