The Power of 18: School Council Creative Learning Campaign
Who
Convent of Jesus and Mary Language College in partnership with BridgeBuilders
What and how
The college wanted to build on the outcomes of last year's project whereby the student council looked at capacity building. The success of this work led them to determine two campaigns to be undertaken this year, one of which was to explore what fun and interesting lessons look like and to put this to the test in the classroom.
BridgeBuilders worked with the school drawing together expertise from learning and communication, theatre and performance and organisational development. Their work explores team working, creativity and imagination, high impact communications, leadership and action learning.
The project began with a series of sessions with the student council. They started by reviewing the outcomes of their other campaign (a school event before Christmas) and undertook an audit of existing creative learning frameworks already in the school with Advanced Skills Teachers (ASTs)(including: Leading in Learning, Personalised Learning & Thinking Skills and P4C).
They followed this up with preparation and agreement of the ‘Creative Learning Campaign’ project plan to hand over to a Learning Group to manage (including electing 4 representatives to sit on the Learning Group).
The Learning Group phase of the work put the ‘Creative Learning Campaign’ to the test in lessons and provided space for reflection and review of the outcomes. Six teachers from across departments carried out 3 planned teaching experiments linked into the curriculum. This was supported by lesson planning and design for these experiments.
Project objectives
The Convent of Jesus and Mary Language College's priorities were geared around student voice and co-construction of the curriculum, which was important because the students themselves identified these areas for development. It also leads on from areas highlighted by Ofsted in its inspection of the school in May 2009.
This project therefore enabled the college to explore the impact of:
- Students and teachers collaborating to be clearer about what fun and interesting learning in the classroom is and to identify the extent to which students and teachers agree on the elements of fun and interesting learning.
- Students and teachers co-constructing opportunities for more fun and interesting learning.
- Teachers and students identifying cultural and structural factors that promote and inhibit fun and interesting learning.
