On 19 September Sonja Adams (teacher at Glenbrook Primary and Foundation School and part time secondment to Creative Partnerships Nottingham) and Claire Stopard (drama teacher at River Leen Secondary School) went to Woodlands Special School, Nottingham, to deliver a staff meeting.
The purpose of the meeting was to open a dialogue about creativity as well as have some fun.
Warming Up
We started off by giving staff a bank of statements exploring ideas about creativity. This was an opportunity for staff to talk about how creativity might support pupils and teachers. One of the most talked about statements was ‘The National Curriculum provides opportunities for a creative curriculum’. Staff felt the NC was “dull, boring and rigid”. What do you think?
As teacher consultants, we aim to look at how we can support staff to take ownership of the NC as well as challenging the assumption that ‘You need to change the structure of the school day to make space for creativity’.
There was a general agreement that ‘It is easy to make ‘dry’ subjects come to life through creative approaches’ and ‘any subject can be taught creatively’.
Getting Going
Claire then led an active session where staff tried out various drama strategies. They were asked to suggest ways in which they might use these strategies back in their classrooms.
* For drama ideas a good place to look is BBC Bitesize Drama.
Next Steps
We have a follow up meeting in October and staff have been asked to try out one of the techniques before then to feed back on. We also plan to ask staff to bring a worksheet along and see how planning together, using creative activities could improve the lesson.
Coming into your school
There are opportunities for us (or any of the other Teacher Consultants) to come into your school to deliver something similar or we can personalise a session for your needs.
Please contact me: sonja.adams@creative-partnerships.com for more information.
