Poject Creative arts partnerships in education

Description - The Local Context - Response

Detailed Description

Preparing children and young people for the 21st century
Young people face an unpredictable future within a rapidly changing world. Employers increasingly express a need for a creative, innovative, responsive and flexible workforce, with the confidence to take on new skills as the need arises. As citizens, young people leaving school will need to be able to take even greater responsibility for the many decisions they will face in their ever changing lives. Yet there is little focus on preparing young people for these challenges.

CAPE UK is exploring how schools, colleges, training providers and youth and community groups can prepare young people for this unpredictable future.

CAPE is seeking to do this by:

  • Placing creativity at the heart of learning
    Working with others; solving complex problems; imagining and creating innovative solutions; taking risks; venturing into the unknown; exploring unfamiliar ideas; handling uncertainty and conflict; facing change positively - these are all areas which we are seeking to enable young people to explore in supportive but challenging situations.
  • Working through partnerships
    Developing partnerships between schools, communities, creative professionals, local business and others, creates an environment in which all concerned think beyond the confines of their own experience and limitations and explore new solutions.
  • Evaluating the impact and effect of this approach
    CAPE is conceived as a seven year action research programme. Evaluation and reflection on the initiative is a central part of our work.

CAPE UK:

  • was established in1997 as an independent charitable trust working within the Leeds and Manchester areas.
  • is developing local partnerships around twenty two high schools to explore and develop creative process in learning, teaching and management of education
  • is supported by Leeds LEA and the four LEAs which make up the Education Training Partnership in the Greater Manchester area -Manchester, Salford, Trafford and Tameside.
  • receives funding and support from the European social Fund, Yorkshire Arts Board, North West Regional Arts Board, the Lottery Arts for Everyone programme and the Granada foundation.

From arts to creativity
For some years there have been projects working within the UK to take arts activities into schools - artists' residencies, theatre in education companies, writers in residence, arts festivals. Whilst these are of undoubted value, there is a general frustration that all too often they are one-off activities which do not have long term impact within the climate of the school.

In 1996 several key people from the Regional Arts Boards and Local Education Authorities in the North of England heard about an innovative scheme which had been running for several years in Chicago - Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education. During the lifetime of the project, learning motivation, achievement and drop out rates had all been significantly improved.

The two regional Arts Boards undertook some initial research to explore the possibility of transferring the scheme to the UK context. It was agreed that the priority in the UK should not just be on learning through the arts, but an exploration of creativity in teaching and learning across all areas of the curriculum through the development of long term partnership between creative professionals, schools, regional education institutions and local communities.

A unique and powerful partnership was formed between two Regional Arts Boards - North West Regional Arts and Yorkshire Arts and the Local Education Authorities of Leeds, Manchester, Salford, Trafford and Tameside each of which committed initial funding and support to the organisation.

CAPE UK was born in 1997, supported by grants from the Lottery Arts for Everyone programme and the European Social Fund through its Youthstart strand and the Granada Foundation to support activities in Manchester schools.

Twenty four high schools were originally selected to join the CAPE UK initiative. Both regions established a steering group with representation from the creative sector, education, business and the community to guide and support the development.

Working through Partnerships
Partnerships are potentially one of the most powerful tools in the development of creativity in education. By bringing together people from different worlds, each of which has its own language and set of assumptions, and by enabling them to work together over an extended period of time, new and exciting ways of working will emerge.

Such partnerships can:

  • support a wide range of learning opportunities for pupils,
  • influence and enhance the curriculum,
  • make a valuable contribution to staff development,
  • strengthen the relationship between the school and its community.

High schools in the Leeds and the greater Manchester areas are at the centre of local partnerships. Whilst each partnership is evolving differently within its own particular context, they are all working towards a grouping made up of staff from local schools, creative professionals, community, and local industry. Several of these are now well established. They all have the common goal of placing creativity at the heart of the curriculum.

Central to this partnership is the commissioning of an external creative professional to work long-term alongside a school co-ordinator in the development of a strategy for change and innovation within the school.

Such Creative professionals:

  • are often self employed, or working within creative organisations where uncertainty and the need to respond quickly and flexibly to changing circumstances is essential.
  • are frequently risk takers who see problem solving as their role.
  • often come from a context where they are used to the need to influence and work with others.

It is precisely these abilities that young people need for the 21st Century.

Preparing for an unknowable future
Creativity should be integral to the whole school curriculum and not simply seen as a dimension of arts activities. It is equally fundamental to advances in the sciences, mathematics, technology, politics, business - indeed all aspects of everyday life.

Creativity can, and should be, taught at all levels of the curriculum but there is growing recognition that there are few strategies to support this teaching.
CAPE partnerships are exploring a number of complementary questions

  • Can creative processes assist young people to understand, remember and engage with complex issues?
  • How can teaching and learning be organised to enable young people to be creative and innovative in their thinking and in the way that they approach issues?
  • Do creative processes engage learners who have been 'switched off' by more conventional teaching methods?

Working with the creative professional
Many partnerships are now working in an innovative way with the creative professionals to explore these issues. One school has launched creativity as the heart of the curriculum; another has invited the lead professional to address all the school staff and to work with the senior management team; a third has invited the lead to join the school's working party on teaching and learning.

Many of the partnerships are working within communities with high levels of deprivation, with indicators which include high take-up of free school meals, a mobile pupil population, many parents unemployed, poor health prospects, levels of pupil attainment well below the national averages.

Their contexts range from large council estates with predominantly white communities to inner city areas with high concentrations of pupils from ethnic minority backgrounds to more affluent suburban areas.

Each of the partnerships has developed its own programme, seeking to embed creative processes at the heart of the curriculum.

Learning through creating
The only requirement of a CAPE project is that is enables children and young people to explore issues creatively and work with a creative professional towards demanding standards. This is leading to a rich variety of activities, many of which involve young people engaging with the 'real world'. These are just a small number of examples of activities being supported through CAPE:

  • Working with designers to design and make furniture for the local community forest.
  • Working with an architect to redesign the school environment to make it more welcoming to young people
  • Working with a theatre group to explore the concept and applications of probability
  • Designing and developing a school pond as a resource for science teaching
  • Running a live radio station, broadcasting to the local community
  • Working with a visual artist to deepen understanding of the relationship between mathematical formulas and curves plotted on a graph
  • Exploring mathematical and scientific concepts through music
  • Learning about French language and culture by working with a chef, a mime artist, puppeteers and textile designers
  • A 'Literacy Week' involving all departments in a school working with story tellers, poets, illustrators, media groups, digital artists
  • Creative literacy work and dance work with primary and secondary age children to create a link between the two school worlds
  • In English, the study of a piece of literature linked to a world music programme in co-operation with a national orchestra
  • Working with set and costumes designers to create costumes for the Manchester Education Arts Festival
  • A group of young people working with an artist to set up a community festival
  • Unemployed young people working with visual artists to enhance a community centre
  • 16 to 19 year olds making a film for public screening which explores their self image and issues facing young people.
  • A group of young people working on the design of sculptures to enhance a school quiet area.
  • College students learning to share their skills with groups of school children on creative projects such as producing and designing CDroms

Working towards social inclusion

Focused work with disadvantaged young people 14-19
Most of the high schools, and all of the community-based organisations and colleges are also working within the European Social Fund YOUTHSTART programme to set up projects which focus on the needs of young people between the ages of fourteen and nineteen who are at risk of failing within the education system, or who have left school and are unemployed.

The partnerships are exploring new approaches to working with these groups, including residential courses, weekend, evening and lunchtime activities. The creative professionals are developing new working relationships with the young people, inspiring them to take responsibility for their learning.

Key features of the programmes which seem to be making a difference are:

  • Engagement in creative activities which accelerate and deepen motivation
  • Enjoyment of the the rigour demanded by working with external professionals
  • A focus on team work and problem solving
  • The pleasure of successful risk taking
  • New and more adult relationships

These activities are seen to be having a powerful impact on the self esteem, behaviour and attendance of the young people involved.

'Key Skills Through Creative Activities'
CAPE has been approved by the Open College Network to offer accreditation in two key skills areas - 'Working with Others' and 'Problem Solving' - offering young people evidence of the transferable skills they have learnt. CAPE is promoting ways of making accreditation an integral part of the learning by exploring creative and innovative ways of assessing what the young people have learnt so that the assessment process is not a barrier to learning.

Training the trainers
Trainers, creative professionals and others are being prepared to use this approach to teaching and learning through developing programmes and reflecting on these. This process is being accredited by Manchester Metropolitan University and Bretton Hall. Teachers and creative professionals also work collaboratively over weekend courses to explore new ways of working by engaging in practical, creative problem solving tasks themselves.

Evaluation
CAPE UK is making a substantial investment in long term evaluation of the impact of creativity on teaching and learning..

A baseline evaluation was conducted by the NFER (National Foundation for Education Research) in the early part of 1998 and was disseminated to schools and colleges during that year. Further external evaluation conducted by the NFER will take place during Spring 2000. Internal evaluation is on-going, and will run parallel with the external process.

The processes being set in train will take time to develop and influence the culture of each partnership. Long term evaluation is therefore central to the initiative.

Certain key factors which contribute to success seem to be emerging from our work so far:

  • Young people enjoy the sense of satisfaction of successful risk taking.
  • This may often be related to the pressure of performing or preparing public displays.
  • Young people refer as much to the rigour and discipline of the projects as tot the pleasure.
  • They want to be responsible for their own learning.
  • They enjoy being involved in and responsible for the education of other, usually younger, learners.
  • Teachers are commenting upon the positive effects of the CAPE initiative in terms of motivation, concentration, commitment and self image.
  • Numbers of teachers report a significant increase in their own motivation and job satisfaction.
  • There is evidence of some greater parental involvement as a result of CAPE activities.

These and future findings will continue to influence the work within each partnership and beyond.

Disseminating the CAPE 'model'
There is a growing interest nationally and internationally in the role of creativity within education and training. CAPE is making an active contribution to debate and development in this area.

CAPE ideas and approaches are being adopted in other schools and are having an impact on design of approaches within Education Action Zones, Excellence in Cities and regeneration programmes.

Nationally, CAPE has featured in two reports -
The DfEE National Advisory Committee for Cultural and Creative Education All Our Futures and a Department of Culture, Media and Sport report on the role of the arts in combating social exclusion.

The NFER base line evaluation has been widely disseminated at local and regional levels.

Sustaining the CAPE initiative
CAPE has always been envisaged as a long-term project allowing for the approach to be fully evaluated. Our partner organisations are making a long-term commitment to the programme and with them, CAPE is seeking ways of further developing its work..

CAPE has been introduced to schools and other organisations working with young people at a time when they under great pressure. Despite this many schools and other organisations have embraced the CAPE approach as an integral part of their work. CAPE funded activities have enabled some remarkable activities and experiences to take place. It is allowing children and young people, teachers and creative professionals to embark on some unforgettable journeys.

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