Creative Curriculum designed to engage: 'Our Voice, Our Story'
"We want to make sure there are no passive children in our lessons, raise the attainment of boys' literacy to that of girls and encourage the young people to be active stewards of their learning with parents and other stakeholders getting actively involved."
-Sandra Logan, Headteacher
Woodlands Infants School worked with the creative agent to identify the right creative partners for the programme. The creative agent and three practitioners began by delivering an inset day designed to inform and excite the staff about the project and went on to work with the school on the detail of the planning and to support the delivery process.
The structure, created by the team to help the school plan in a new way, included a set of planning tools. One step required all staff to have four core elements to the planning: a wow introduction that hooks the children in; clear outputs throughout; a visit somewhere or visitor; and an element of parental involvement.
All classes participated:
- Nursery pupils focused on an Ugly Bug Ball, with parents involved in a trip to the forest.
- Reception pupils looked at trains with visitor Hairy Sam (a puppet), with parents involved in a train ride trip.
- Themes for Year 1 were Nepal, 'Growing' and 'Under The Sea'. Parents attended a sharing event.
- The theme for Year 2 was Water, looking at diving, saving a whale and the Titanic. Parents were involved through homework tasks and a sharing event.
Impact
The majority of children in a Year 1 class went up by a whole level in writing after the intervention. Now, only 6 pupils in year 1 (10%) are below national expectations in Literacy where before that figure was more than double. 75% of pupils were average or above average, whereas now 90% of pupils are average or above average.
- Year 1M has improved by an average of 4.94 points, Year 1P by an average of 5.14 points, Year 2P by an average of 4.15 points and Year 2M by an average of 4.6 points. The two less than average classes have made more progress than the higher groups. Boys in Year 1P made more progress than girls.
- 53% of Reception pupils made more progress in the summer term than in the spring.
- 30% of Reception pupils were identified as above average, an increase from 16% in the previous year.
- 95% of staff reported an increase in their confidence in using creative approaches. All staff agree that new planning tools and curriculum approaches take less time, are more effective, have greater impact on the learning of the children and facilitate greater engagement by staff, children and parents.
Comments from pupils:
"We used our imagination, pretending to go up Mount Everest."
"I liked climbing Mount Everest."
"I liked learning about Kathmandu and learning about different religions."
"I liked getting ready for the expedition."
"I liked the Yeti story - it was funny!"
"We now do really long stories and even show them to parents at parents' evening."
"We reflected on what we had learnt to write a letter to the Captain."
"I like telling my story about the sea."
If you are interested in this project and you would like to find out more about this project and others, please visit www.cre8us.org.uk
