Green fingers and silver tongues – South Dartmoor Community College
Perched on the edge of the National Park, South Dartmoor Community College has its fingers in so many creative pies that soon it will have to start using its toes!
This School of Creativity wishes to capture, develop and share the varied and vibrant creative practice that is a feature of the work at South Dartmoor. Many of their projects, they feel, could be even further enhanced by greater internal networking and synergy, and also by being exposed to external response and evaluation. In their words: "we believe that ‘the parts’ are extraordinary and that 'the sum' will be transformational. Our driving focus is on creativity as the catalyst for changing practice, improving the way schools work and raising standards".
Two of their most exciting projects are Sculptured Poetry and Garden Create...
Sculptured Poetry
What were we trying to achieve?
The Sculpted Poems Project brought together Year 6 students with Gifted and Talented Year 7 students from South Dartmoor Community College to work together on a common creative project centred on William Blake's poem "The Tyger". It also brought together teachers from various departments and disciplines within the College who would not normally be working together.
The project aimed to challenge preconceptions about the nature of creativity both for teachers and students. It was also driven by the desire to take poetry off the page and explore it in original ways in order to deepen analysis and personal response and widen accessibility - all key factors for English students.
How was learning organised?
The teaching team from comprised an English teacher, a Dance teacher, two Design & Technology teachers and project co-ordinator drawn from the Media department.
Initially the teaching team visited a local primary school and spent time with Year 6 students exploring Blake's poem through writing, discussion and movement. This gave the teachers from South Dartmoor Community College a surprising insight into the abilities and creative responses of the primary school students.
Back at South Dartmoor Community College the teaching team worked with a group of Gifted and Talented Year 7 students on the same poem.
Then both Year 6 and Year 7 students were brought together for a more in-depth exploration of the poem in a one-day workshop. The resulting work and responses produced by the students included sculpture, stained glass and dance. All students spent two hours working on the sculpture, and one hour each working on the stained glass and dance. The Media teacher also made a short documentary of the workshop. Following this workshop there was a sharing event attended by parents, students and teachers in the library at South Dartmoor Community College where the work was presented.
How well have we achieved our aims?
The results and findings from this inno¬vative project were then taken back to the English Department at South Dartmoor Community College where teach¬ing staff discussed the implications for future pedagogy. It was clear that creative learning in this way radically deepens student response to poetry and leads to higher student attainment. Teachers were surprised and impressed by the level of analysis the students achieved and began to question their own methods and expectations.
Garden Create
What were we trying to achieve?
We wanted harder-to-reach students to experience educa¬tion in a different way: Out of the classroom and into the living environment, champi¬oning learning through real-life, healthy, hands-on involvement with food, gardens, green spaces, wildlife and nature.
The opportunity to create a garden from scratch let students use and develop a wide range of skills from all areas of the curriculum. We also wanted to create an environment to develop social skills - communication, team work, patience, caring and respect - and find out if learning could be made more engaging and relevant, with students able to see the tangible results of their labours.
The findings from the Royal Horticultural Society's Getting Schools Growing campaign showed that schools can improve academic achievement, reduce behaviour problems, improve attendance, inspire and improve motivation. We wanted to find out if the Garden Project could help with some of our more disaffected students who were not performing well in the conventional classroom environment.
A significant part of the project sets out to educate students about where food comes from and how it is grown, promoting awareness of environmental issues and the importance of a healthy diet.
How was learning organised?
Two groups of students were selected from Years 7 to 9, each working in the garden for half a day per week. Both groups were involved from the start with input into the garden design, and work involved activities like measuring out, digging and fencing as well as sowing and planting and all of the work required to produce a good crop of vegetables.
The young gardeners are now beginning to learn about horticultural aspects such as crop rotation, the need for water and nutrients, composting and planned planting and harvest times. The project is approaching its first birthday and the students have seen almost the full cycle from sowing seeds, through planting out, tending, harvesting, cooking and onto the plate.
The garden has had two visits from Mark Diacono, Head Gardener at River Cottage and owner of Otter Farm - Britain's first climate change farm. On each occa¬sion he has brought Rocket Garden seedlings to compli¬ment our own sowing, along with interest¬ing produce for the students to taste. He also brought a pink peppercorn tree, only the third in the country, a plant now viable in the South of England as a result of global warming. Mark’s first visit coincided with the spring planting season and his second with the harvest season, when we cooked "Half the Garden Soup" and roasted vegetables: recipes from Mark’s book Veg Patch. All the vegetables and herbs were picked straight from, and cooked in, the school garden.
How well have we achieved our aims?
There are three ways in which we can assess achievement for this project:
1. The success of the garden in terms of the variety of plants and size of harvest
2. The students understanding and appreciation of the growing processes, where our food comes from and the importance of good diet
3. The effect on the participants' psychological and emotional wellbeing
In all respects the garden has been a success!
Our first year has been very productive, the effort the students put in literally bearing fruit. They have taken the results of their variety of plants and size of harvest, labours home and have sold some in the staffroom to generate funds to buy seeds. We are registered on the Royal Horticultural Society’s Campaign for School Garden¬ing and are progressing up their benchmark scheme, having completed Planning and Getting Started, about to achieve level 3 Growing and Diversifying.
The groups have seen the whole process from seed to plate and been involved at every stage. They have also had the opportunity to have input into the design and running of the garden, a process which is ongoing with maintenance and additions constantly happening - for instance we are in the process of constructing a wildlife pond and propose to build a wildlife shelter.
The participants enjoy the less structured and constrained way of working and have shown signs of being more relaxed and tol¬erant generally as well as specifically in the garden. When asked by the inspector during our recent OFSTED inspection they all gave positive feedback stating that the garden project helped them feel more motivated, reducing stress and anxiety.
Away from the classroom the children can consolidate making friends and have to learn to negotiate and co-operate with each other, working with other students and adults to learn that they can bring about change. This approach helps them value and take ownership of the garden, empowering them to be creators of something tangible and not just recipients in the learning process.
The Garden Project is now a permanent feature and plans for the future include erection of a recycled greenhouse, raised beds, water harvesting, sculpture and trips to local organic farms, woodland projects and other places of interest.
We have a Garden Project group on the school website where articles and blogs can be published with photographs, created by the group or by individuals.
