Background

Glasgow CREATE launched the exciting project “Glorious Glasgow” in January 2023, asking the young people of Glasgow to tell us what Glasgow is to them. This project incorporated the expressive arts, digital, creativity and DYW skills. It will culminate in an interactive, interdisciplinary, cross sectoral project which aims to re-engage schools with the cultural and arts opportunities our city offers. This was a free, city-wide project open to all primary and secondary schools at any stage, and any curricular area.

25 schools and over 500 pupils participated in the different stages of the project, as detailed below:

1. A citywide challenge was distributed to all schools, with the task of answering 5 questions about their own experience of Glasgow and recording their answer in any format – poster, social media response, presentation etc.
2. A bus trip for 80 pupils across 5 schools, exploring the city of Glasgow and hearing about unique aspects from the tour guide.
3. A drama play day for 60 secondary pupils from across the city, who devised performances on the theme of “Glorious Glasgow”.
4. A dance routine, devised by YDance and based on the pupil responses from step 1, which was shared and developed with 5 secondary schools and 30 pupils.
5. An Expressive Arts Day for 35 primary teachers, using the theme “Glorious Glasgow”. Participants took part in a creative workshop based on each Expressive Art, made connections as to good practice in schools across the city and took away lesson plans for each session.

Teaching Resources

The responses to this challenge led to the development of resources to support learning and teaching in Expressive Arts and to promote the development of creativity skills through exploration of a Glasgow theme.
These resources contains series’ of lessons focusing on Art & Design, Dance, Drama and Music, which provide ideas for practitioners to explore with learners across Early, First and Second Level, making links to the wider curriculum and creativity skills.