Field of Depth
The programme was delivered by Creative Partnerships Sheffield at Ecclesfield Secondary School
Enquiry question
How does focussing on four creative learning thinking skills empower the pupils to learn creatively?
Brief description
Staff from Ecclesfield Secondary School identified four creative learning skills that would be explored in a range of projects led by creative practitioner, Matt Butt. The four skills were: divergent thinking; use of analogies and metaphors; imagination and intuition; reflection and refinement. The aim was to embed them as tools the pupils could use across the curriculum.
Key outcomes
The final programme report highlights a number of interesting outcomes.
With the GCSE RE class there was a significant change in the mock examination results. The group that Matt worked with achieved 60% A-C compared with the previous year’s group of similar ability who achieved 34%. The students demonstrated a better ability to discuss, relationships improved and behaviour was better. Margaret Gaunt, the teacher, was in no doubt that this was due to the different approaches Matt had introduced:
‘I really enjoyed working with Matt and learnt new approaches to lessons. I have used some of them during this year’s module of Matters of Life and Death and will change some of my approaches when we do Marriage and the Family again.’
She also felt she had benefitted personally from working alongside her pupils in a new way:
‘It was an amazing experience for me to join the class and participate in the exercise…The piece that the group produced was almost irrelevant. The experience we had that afternoon, working together, was ‘magic’…
The creative partner himself felt the Science project was a particular success:
‘I was amazed to see the students take the four skills and run with them, producing poems, physical representations, drawing analogies, thinking outside the box and creating sketches which are not usually seen anywhere near the science labs. The pupils were confident that the work with the CP programme had helped them understand the sometimes abstract processes in science, such as Chromatography.’
At the beginning, one pupil, ‘Daniel,’ gave the usefulness of imagination and intuition a 4/10, stating they ‘help you get things off your mind’. At the end he gave it 10/10 saying ‘Imagination helps you to move to different planes of thinking. Pushing the boundaries of ordinary thought. Intuition lets you truly get what’s on your mind into something.’
Sustainable impact
• The RE teacher plans to use more discussion-based and physical activities.
• The Geography department intends to develop the sessions they took part in across the entire year. Turning the conference room into a shanty town and then destroying it was a memorable moment from the project.
• The Maths teachers feel more open to varying classroom activities and planning extended work.
The school’s Creativity Coordinator, Martin Storr, reported:
‘…we do feel that this year we have made a significant contribution to creative learning in school and to future directions it could take. As part of the evaluation process we brought together all the staff that had taken part…. This was powerful as it focussed the group to analyse the impact of CP. The end result was the production of a learning resource on creativity which we intend to make the spring board for next year’s CP.’
Children working together with clay.
