Lambeth Academy - Creative to the Core
Lambeth Academy is broadly average in size, although it has continued to expand each year since it opened in September 2004. The percentage of students entitled to a free school meal is much higher than usually found, as are the percentages from minority ethnic groups and those who come from homes where English is not the first language. The proportion of students who have special educational needs is broadly average, although the academy makes provision for visually impaired students and more students than usually found have a statement of special educational needs. The academy specialises in business and enterprise and modern foreign languages. It has been awarded Arts Mark and the International School Award and is part of the United Learning Trust.
Ofsted 2010
Project objectives
Between March and May 2010, Year 7 students and three practitioners from the Talawa Theatre Company worked on a project with a focus on the enquiry question, ‘How can creative approaches to teaching and learning enhance both student engagement and achievement within the core subjects.’
Using the mediums of poetry and contemporary popular music, year 7 students and teachers were able to explore their enquiry question across several core subjects including English, Maths, Art & Design, Dance, Drama, and Music in planned workshops. Participants of the workshops were encouraged to build up creativity techniques for creative learning and reflect on the knowledge and skills they had acquired. In one class this was done using a ‘reflection mirror’. During the course of the project student representatives from the year 7 classes formed a creativity group and met on a weekly basis to plan and evaluate the project’s impact and relevance to the enquiry question. This was done through making a documentary where workshop and reflection sessions were filmed and edited with a film maker. The group also worked with a web developer to design and produce webpages on the school’s website for the project to have an online presence.
The culmination of the project was a ‘Creative to the Core’ conference where the creativity group presented the creative practices learned through workshop sessions and encouraged students and teachers, to think about trying these practices as a way of improving student engagement. Teachers from other schools attended as well as Professor Anna Craft from the Open University and Exeter University who was invited as a guest speaker for the conference.
Impact
From the assessment and evaluation of the project, it was evident that the pupils enjoyed the different creative techniques they had learnt, as although the project was very skills based and attainment was harder to measure, engagement with the core subjects increased significantly. One teacher said that working with the practitioners had made her more confident in being more experimental with the topics and getting the children to move. The teachers felt that they had taken risks in their work on this project and through passing on their learning to other teachers; creative practices and outcomes were being embedded in work plans throughout the curriculum.
One teacher said “In one lesson, the students became the teachers and the session was completely owned by them”.
Another teacher said, “The practitioners were prepared to think off the cuff and this helped me do the same and it also allowed us to adapt things together”.
