Information for Leaders in education
Evidence is everywhere that the critical factors in raising achievement on all fronts are the motivation and expectations of the students themselves.
Creative Schools + Creative Colleges is about inspiring and motivating your teachers and students to aim higher and build resilience and preparedness for next steps through innovative, and inspiring creative projects.
We support improvement in a positive, creative, and collaborative way
Register your interest now, to find out how we are helping schools and colleges meet broader strategic priorities for improvement through creative projects and partnerships in east London.
David Crossley’s manifesto for change, outlined in ‘Sustainable School Transformation’ (2013) argues that the first step towards change involves ‘making the most of the teachers we have and unleashing their creativity’. Who better to upskill and motivate teachers and pupils and unleash their creativity than expert partners from the arts and cultural education sector?
Sign up for our Schools + College Brokerage, to talk about how partnerships and projects can help unleash teachers’ creativity in your school for sustained improvement.
Steps towards sustainable school = college change outline by David Crossley (Executive Director of Whole Education):
The journey from great to excellent focuses on creating an environment that will unleash the creativity and innovation of its educators–McKinsey and Co. 2010
Many of the challenges that schools and colleges commonly face, including poor behaviour, bullying, and engagement come from the world outside, in which pupils spend most of their time and energies.
Creative projects brokered through our partners, can encourage schools to collaborate across a cluster or engage the wider school community. Developing closer ties with families and the community is one of the best ways to understand and tackle school challenges.
Collaboration between schools, colleges and families is a powerful source of school improvement–Ken Robinson, Creative Schools, 2015
All subjects, disciplines and areas of work can be enriched through a creative approach. Our broad range of cultural partners from east London and beyond can support schools to find the right project or intervention to inspire learning in any subject, including Science, Maths, Literacy, Poetry, P.E.
Our projects can help enrichment, tackling difficult subjects, British Values, and citizenship. They can also support personal development and behaviours for learning and work,
An innovative and creative approach to learning is key to improving the needed skills for the future. Creativity collaboration and interpersonal skills are amongst the top skills needed by employers according as noted by the world economic forum and in light of our increasingly digitised culture and industries.
This short clip by university of Derby shows the need for creative , problem solving and interpersonal skills in futureproofing a successful future that forms part and makes the most of the opportunities of our current and rapidly evolving industrial landscape (i.e. industry 4.0)
As the Warwick Commission Report argues,
‘The government and the cultural and creative industries need to take a united and coherent approach that guarantees equal access for everyone to a rich cultural education and the opportunity to live a creative life. There are barriers and inequalities in Britain today that prevent this from being a universal human right. This is bad for business and bad for society.’
OFSTED Phase 3 Curriculum Research also highlighted the importance of a creative curriculum:
‘The timetabling and the organisation of curriculum delivery in some of the schools with weaker curriculum quality also limited pupils’ knowledge and understanding in technology and arts subjects in key stage 3. Practical and creative subjects were sometimes marginalised. It is important, however, to note that headteachers in the schools with a band 4 or 5 for curriculum quality were often passionate advocates of the benefits of subjects such as music, drama and technology. A wide range of subjects tended to thrive in these schools.’—OFSTED 2018
Vikki Heywood CBE, Chairman of the Warwick Commission on the Future of Cultural Value
The Benefits of Cultural Learning
According to key research by the Cultural Learning Alliance in 2017:
Read the Key Research Findings in full at: www.culturallearningalliance.org.uk/evidence
Creativity is much broader and more universal than what people typically consider the ‘artistic’ fields. We think of creativity as using your imagination to create something new in the world. Creativity comes into play whenever you have the opportunity to generate new ideas, solutions, or approaches.–Tom and David Kelley, Founder of IDEO
Find out More
David Crossley (ed.) Sustainable School Transformation, An Inside-Out School Led Approach (2013)
Ken Robinson Creative Schools (2015)
Ken Robinson, All our Futures: Creativity, Culture, and Education (1999)
OFSTED: Curriculum research: assessing intent, implementation and impact, (2018)
Whole Education: http://www.wholeeducation.org/
The Cultural Learning Alliance: www.culturallearningalliance.org.uk/
A New Direction: https://www.anewdirection.org.uk/
The Creative Industries Federation: https://www.creativeindustriesfederation.com/
AHRC: Understanding the Value of Arts and Culture: https://ahrc.ukri.org/documents/publications/cultural-value-project-final-report/
A+D, Caring For Cultural Freedom: https://www.anewdirection.org.uk/research/cultural-ecology
OFSTED: Creative Approaches that Raise Standards: https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20141116012722tf_/http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/node/2405
The Warwick Commission Report on Cultural Value
https://warwick.ac.uk/research/warwickcommission/futureculture/finalreport/