Category: Continuing professional development

Creative Conversation with Paul Collard

Gayle Martin, Arts & Culture Offiicer, Curriculum Support Falkirk Council Education has been working in partnership with Clare Hoare at Stirling Council to develop Creative Conversations.  The lastest event was led by Paul Collard.  Paul has over 25 years experience of working in the arts and is an expert in delivering programmes that use creativity and culture as drivers of social and economic change. He joined the U.K government’s flagship creative learning programme, Creative Partnerships in January 2005 and played a crucial role in clarifying the purpose of Creative Partnerships and streamlining the delivery of the programme in schools.  Paul delivered our latest Creative Conversation ‘How do we Capture & Measure Creativity’ on Wed 17th April at the Tollbooth. 

Throughout the session Paul discussed how to identify and recognise creativity in order to measure.  As part of the Creative Partnerships work in England Cambridge University carried out research examining the pedagogy of creative practice, as part of this they outlined the following:

Pupils need risk for motivation – this gives learners incentive to work. Schools can be too low risk – pupils need high visibility outcomes.  High functioning pupils will be physically, socially, emotionally and intellectually engaged equalling high performance pupils.  

 Other Creative indicators are:

Essential Psychological Needs

Key Ingredients

Defining Creativity

Taking Science Outdoors

A group of primary teachers spent a very wet morning with Jane Jackson,  Outdoor Learning Development Officer, Falkirk Council Curriculum Support Team, exploring how to deliver Science in the outdoors.

Practical ideas from several of the CfE science organisers were demonstrated, and included exploring how small mammals keep warm during the cold, wet winter months.  The participants insulated their own ‘home made’ mammals in a range of ways and there was a lot of competition when we re-tested their core temperatures after 20 mins!

As well as giving teachers some practical ideas, the course encouraged participants to think about their planning, and consider where taking their learning outdoors would enhance the teaching and learnng experience for pupils.

Links to some of the supporting material used on the day can be found below:

minibeast ID key

nature detective resources

Science E’s and O’s handout

Creativity – What Is It?

Gayle Martin, Arts & Culture Officer, Curriculum Support Falkirk Council is working in partnership with Stirling and Clackmannanshire Council to develop Creative Learning.  Gayle recently attended a presentation by Sheila Paige of Education Scotland who is leading Creativity Across Learning, which is a creative review across a range of education establishments in Scotland.  The review will complete in June and results will be published in September.  As part of this Sheila was able to share how Education Scotland has defined Creativity, which is listed below:

 Definitions of Creativity

 Creative skills, sometimes referred to as capacities, include being:

  • Inquisitive
  • Open-minded
  • Able to harness imagination
  • Able to identify and solve problems

 We also define people who have well-formed creative skills as being:

  • Confident in their right and ability to influence change

 These organisers are used to describe more fully those key learning behaviours which will support the development of these skills and capacities.  The following list aims to expand these concepts.  It is not exhaustive but includes:

  • Being curious
  • Registering patterns and anomalies
  • Drawing on previous knowledge
  • Researching productively
  • Formulating good questions
  • Defining problems
  • Exploring multiple viewpoints
  • Functioning with uncertainty
  • Lateral thinking
  • Hypothesising
  • Synthesising and refining multiple options and viewpoints
  • Inventing
  • Crafting, delivering and presenting solutions
  • Applying discipline and resilience
  • Evaluating impact and success of solutions
  • Identifying next steps in refinement or development of process

We would also expect children and young people to become increasingly:

  • Motivated and ambitious for change
  • Confident in validity of their own viewpoint
  • Able to apply a creative process to other situations
  • Able to lead and work well with others

Exploring elements of planning with Denny Early Years Cluster

On Tuesday 16th April Yvonne McBlain from the Curriculum Support Team worked with 27 early years practitioners from the Denny cluster. She facilitated a workshop which explored how practitioners were integrating essential elements of assessment into their planning of interdisciplinary learning. The workshop gave these practitoners an opportunity to work with their establishment colleagues on 2 “challenges”. These challenges were designed to enable collaborative and individual self-evaluation of planning effective connected learning. They also supported identification of the most relevant next steps for partricipants. The session was designed to generate questions as well as providing access and guidance on next steps. Participants said that the session was “useful” “informative” “made you think” and was “well-designed and enjoyable”. Here is a selection of next steps identified by participants:

Further conversations with colleagues around planning

Think more about what our success criteria will be while planning – which should make evidence and assessment more relevant

Develop team’s ability to identify appropriate learning intentions and success criteria

Review approach to planning

Share with other staff (higher classes in school)

CPD TV

Stuart Lennie, ICT Curriculum Development Officer in Falkirk Council Education Services Curriculum Support team, has just launched the official Falkirk Council Education Services YouTube Channel.

The channel, available HERE, will be used to provide CPD opportunities, support, and guidance for education establishments across Falkirk Council. Within the page are links to the other official YouTube channels for Falkirk schools.

The channel also works on the YouTube app for Smartphones and Tablets, giving you access to content whenever you need it.

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Make sure you subscribe to the channel to get all of our latest updates!

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Support For Booking Rooms Within Camelon Education Centre

Kate Hotchkiss – Receptionist/Clerical Assistant in the Curriculum Support Team of Falkirk Council Education Services, provides the support for booking rooms within Camelon Education Centre.

Kate’s role is to ensure the facilities  provide the best learning environment for staff attending either short meetings or all day seminars. Staff can then return to the classroom with as  positive an experience as possible.

Comments from presenters and Participants include “Thank you so much for your help on the day of our training” and “you helped everything go smoothly on the day”

Staff booking onto CPD

Jamielee Dickson, Clerical Assistant within the Falkirk Council Education Services Curriculum Support Team deals with staff booking onto courses. Jamielee is the person at the end of the phone or sending e-mails for staff booking onto professional development.