FULBRIDGE SCHOOL

 

In October 2003, as Head of Fulbridge School, I attended a conference called ‘Building for Tomorrow’ and was inspired to look at an alternative curriculum to the then standard Literacy and Numeracy Hour approach. I approached other Peterborough Schools and created a group of schools that we called ‘Oasis’ (after the name of a drinks machine in the foyer of the Perborough Development Centre!)

This group of schools, of which Fulbridge is the lead school, decided to create an approach to teaching the National Curriculum that was based around a creative and innovative approach to learning that was based on experiential learning. First hand experiences based on what your local environment had to offer was the starting point for developing, as QCA declares, ‘A modern, world-class curriculum that will inspire and challenge all learners and prepare them for the future.’

QCA continues: ‘The curriculum should be treasured. There should be real pride in ‘our’ curriculum: the learning that we decide should be set before our young learners. Teachers, parents and the wider community should all see the curriculum as something that they embrace, support and celebrate. Most of all, young people should relish the opportunity for discovery and achievement that our curriculum offers to them.’

 

Oasis aimed to promote and extend creativity in the curriculum.  As a school we have worked with several national advisors including Roger Cole, Mathilda Joubert, Jasmine Pasche and Kerrie Chappell. The schools creative development owes much to Di Goldsith who ran the Oasis network of schools for three years. In that time we worked with QCA and Mick Waters, most notably on a Year 6 residential conference to look at what children think, makes learning worth it!The schools creative curriculum approach has been about encouraging our young people to be more creative and encouraging staff in schools to be less fearful of finding time and space to allow creativity to flourish.

 

“Imagine the programme of study in a school as the ingredients in a salad. The way you put them together to create the salad is the crucial bit in making it appetising. There is nothing to say that a school has to offer 40 minutes of tomatoes, followed by 40 minutes of lettuce, followed by double onions.

 The challenge for schools is to work out which ingredients need to be taught separately, so that children quarry learning in real depth; which ingredients need to be taught by the drip-feed method for a few minutes every day; and which can be taught jointly.” 

(Mick Waters, Director of QCA, February 2007)

 

The aspiration is to have schools where teachers are so excited about their teaching and the learning experiences they offer children that they could talk about it all day. We want children to be excited and empowered so that we tap into each child’s potential in what ever area their intelligence lies. We must aspire to transform the experiences which children have in their schools.

 

The Oasis curriculum approach was based around Creativity:

 

Creativity is imaginative activity fashioned so as to produce outcomes that are both original and of value.

 

Always involves thinking or behaving imaginatively

The imaginative activity is purposeful; that is, it is directed to achieve an objective

The processes must generate something original

The outcome must be of value in relation to the objective

 

Creativity is an essential human attribute which should lie at the heart of learning. It is the ability to face uncertainty and respond to complex challenges with energy, enthusiasm, imagination and resourcefulness.

Creativity must be at the centre of children’s daily educational experience. It is a move away from a knowledge-based curriculum towards one which values the development of creative capacities in young people; it is a paradigm shift in educational thinking.

Risk and challenge are the essential ingredients of such a curriculum approach.

Creativity is about five broad behaviours:

1. Questioning and challenging
2. Making connections and seeing relationships
3. Envisaging what might be
4. Exploring ideas and keeping options open
5. Reflecting critically on ideas, actions and outcomes

 

Oasis wanted to pursue an approach to learning that opens up genuine creative thinking processes, rather than simply using the arts to illuminate or enliven a curriculum area. We need to create creative skills in the children not simply make learning more memorable. We want children to have memorable experiences but we also want children to observe, classify, hypothesise, experiment, interpret, draw conclusions from evidence and recognise patterns in events and learning. We need to ensure that the memorable experiences we offer children, in stimulating and real contexts encourage such creative skills and habits.

 

Creativity is a standards raising agenda but not simply in terms of test scores, creativity in itself is a high value outcome.

 

 

A Creative School is a school that:

• has remodelled the curriculum using the collective expertise of all the staff.
• designs creative opportunities throughout the curriculum.
• creates good conditions for learning.
• introduces new teaching and learning strategies that excite the children and teachers.
• creates a curriculum that suits their children and the learning environment that is available to them using what their locality has to offer to provide a curriculum based on first hand experiences.
• provides children with opportunities to widen their experiences through the use of visits to places of interest, role play and visitors to school that offer expertise and experiences that the school may not be able to offer.
• develops new organisational structures to allow us to maximise the learning potential within our school.
• improves the school environment and pupil behaviour to help children overcome their emotional and learning difficulties.
• makes creativity a vital and integral part of every child’s experience of school.
• allows children to complete sustained pieces of research which allows them to express their findings through writing, graphs, pictures, dance, drama and other media. Such research opportunities surprise, energise, enthuse, encourage imagination and enterprise on the part of both the teachers and the pupils.
• encourages children to think creatively as opposed to seeing learning as the transference of knowledge, to use strategies to encourage higher order thinking.
• sees learning as a process rather than an end.
• allows children to do less better
• realises that the only meaningful way to boost children’s chance in life is to enable them to drive their own learning.
• aims to make children into enquirers, thinkers, communicators, risk takers, knowledgeable about themes of global importance, principled, caring, open minded, well balanced and reflective. In other words a school that strives to develop citizens that are fit and prepared to meet the challenges of the 21^st century

In July 2009 the Oasis network of schools came to an end due to funding issues but as a school we gained the status of being a National School of Creativity and are now working with a Creative Consultant, Creative Agent and Creative practitioners to futher develop our creative approach to the curriculum.