Batheaston as a School of Creativity: thinking imaginatively together

Schools of Creativity

Batheaston Primary School of Creativity is a unique place, with an ethos centred on inclusion, creativity and aspiration along with a can-do approach. As creative agent Penny explains: "We are very excited by the opportunities that being a School of Creativity gives us to improve and develop our approaches to learning and teaching".

Batheaston are a testament to the fact that that a broad and creative curriculum and high standards in basic skills are not mutually exclusive. For the last four years they have been in the top 17 per cent of schools nationally for the achievement of all their children by the end of Year 6. The school has been recognised by Ofsted as an example of outstanding practice for its "emphasis on inclusion and its aim to produce pupils who think of themselves as responsible citizens of the world, as well as members of their own local community".

The staff at Batheaston work hard to allow children to take the lead as they explore the world around them and discover the joys of proactive learning. They want to improve their children’s life chances by building on their awareness and confidence in themselves as creative learners and thinkers whilst inspiring to higher levels of motivation and engagement in their learning.

As part of their focus the school spent their first year as a School of Creativity co-designing a creative curriculum with the children. The goal is to develop a creative and reflective pedagogy and practice with a further focus on learning life skills and a systematic and integrated understanding of children’s creative development.

The process of designing the creative curriculum, and the benefits all children gain from the enriched provision, has been challenging and exciting. Both the process and the curriculum itself will help develop the qualities needed by successful and happy people: the ability to empathise, playfulness, ingenuity, sensitivity, interpersonal tolerance and celebration of difference, problem solving and self-aware learning.

Over the last ten years, the children in each Reception Class (and more recently the whole school) have been involved in the 5x5x5=creativity research project. 5x5x5=creativity was inspired by the approach to education in Reggio Emilia, Northern Italy. It brings an artist, educators, cultural centres and children together to establish creativity as an essential foundation of learning. Artist Edwina Bridgeman has worked alongside the educators, following the ideas of the children, led by their explorations and their thinking. Children are given the opportunity to explore their own themes and questions and encouraged to create their own lines of enquiry. Thorough documentation of their thoughts, feelings and ideas forms the basis of projects: responsive planning is used to develop and pursue further ideas.

Batheaston immersed the whole staff in a training day focusing on their own creativity: they teamed up with a local school, St Andrews Primary, also involved as a partner in the 5x5x5=creativity research. Fifty staff including teachers, teaching assistants and parent helpers had the opportunity to spend the day at the egg theatre in Bath, exploring creative approaches to learning in and through the arts. Workshops included dance, drama, art, music and creative play alongside artists from 5x5x5=creativity. Keynote presentations offered by Andrea Sully gave everybody lots of food for thought and a chance to step back and think about how they might redesign the curriculum with children, embedding creative and reflective processes at the core.

In the same week a team of adults then led an Enrichment Day involving a range of carefully designed workshops to engage children of mixed age groups in special interest areas including dance, drama, art, music and creative play as well as maths, science, literacy, sport, technology, storytelling and forest education, all run by staff, parents and visiting artists. These workshops were well documented by parents, using photography and note taking; older children act as workshop ‘experts’ to explain the activities to visiting groups.

Batheaston School has a unique Wednesday Workshop Enrichment Programme designed to enrich the learning of children in the school by:

• offering them the opportunity to try a range of things they have never done before, and might not normally get the chance to do
• giving them a chance to shine in an activity that would not normally be covered within the classroom
• empowering them to make their own choices and giving older children a chance to lead sessions.

School staff talk very enthusiastically about how experiences at Wednesday Workshops impact positively on the children’s attitudes to school. Children are more confident to try out new experiences, persevere with tricky activities, work well together in mixed aged groups and develop adept social skills.

Beatheaston also have an annual Arts or Creativity Fair, introducing children to a range of creative activities alongside their families. These have helped to raise funds for the development of a new creative space, to further develop the creative activities within the school, including the continuation of 5x5x5=creativity.

All children, staff and parents are involved in the documentation of creative learning through engaging with processes of observation, listening, reflection and dialogue. Staff and families are also working together to build effective family engagement in creativity. The school’s approaches to engaging families in a whole-school approach to creativity include:

• Special person/special friends/friendship monitors
• Peer mentoring/bespoke support
• Nurture groups
• Grandparent days
• Enrichment days
• Wednesday workshops
• 5x5x5=creativity: parent documenters
• Eco team
• School’s council
• Parent Voice Group
• New school building /interior design committee
• Focus on a Values Curriculum and Disability

The learning journey at Batheaston has involved many creative people in working together to think imaginatively on behalf of children. Family and community involvement is at the heart of the this process, valuing daily conversations about how we can make a difference to children’s lives.