Arts Across Learning Festival (Aberdeen City Council)

ABOUT

Each year, for 6 weeks leading up to the Easter holiday, the Arts Across Learning Festival offers a wealth of artistic and creative talent free to city schools. Artists and cultural organisations work in partnership with schools, libraries, museums and other venues, meaning pupils and teachers are exposed to unrivalled creative learning opportunities.

Each storyteller, artist, theatre company and arts organisation engaged in the festival provides inspiring and imaginative ways of exploring connections across the curriculum. These provide stimuli for further learning and teaching that extend well beyond the duration of the Arts Across Learning Festival.

Associated CPD for teachers is aimed at ensuring opportunities accessed through the festival are maximised in the context of the new curriculum. The CPD is designed to give teachers the skills and confidence to use the arts imaginatively and creatively across all learning.

In 2010, the Arts Across Learning Festival involved:

– 5,800 primary school pupils
– 681 teachers
– 135 separate events in schools and venues
– 89 teachers accessed CDP opportunities
– 9 follow up conversations with teachers
– 47 (out of 48) primary schools
– 2 (out of 6) special schools
– 11 partner nurseries
– 3 independent schools
– 43 professional artists and arts/cultural organisations

The introductory statement in the experiences and outcomes for Expressive Arts states: ‘My learning in, through and about the expressive arts is enhanced and enriched through partnerships with professional arts companies, creative adults and cultural organisations’

The Festival is organised by the City’s Arts Education Team, who match need with opportunity in support of creative learning. The Arts Across Learning festival is the only regular programme of work the team offers.

PURPOSE

The Arts Across Learning Festival provides rich contexts for learning and teaching, as opposed to single fun experiences for children. The purpose of the festival is to expose pupils and teachers to new, relevant experiences and to encourage schools to invest time in developing and embedding creative ways of working across the curriculum.

The first festival in 1999 was programmed in response to reports that less than 9% of parents read bedtime stories to their children, and the negative impact that had on child development and learning.

In 2009, the festival had a one year break for the Arts Education Team to re-evaluate its purpose and direction in light of the new Curriculum for Excellence and 6 years of the Cultural Co-ordinators in Scottish Schools programme in Aberdeen.

Following consultation with teachers and pupils, the festival returned in 2010 as the Arts Across Learning Festival.

The festival programming in now re-focused on Curriculum for Excellence. There are extended CPD linking festival opportunities with experiences and outcomes and the principles of curriculum design across a range of curriculum areas and levels. Additional follow up interviews with teachers is a further new feature of the Arts Across Learning festival and these designed to:

– gather information on impacts
– conduct ongoing consultation and
– continue teachers’ engagement with creative learning
– support changing practice and embed new ways of working

The Arts Across Learning Festival now targets only primary schools. Proportionate and targeted opportunities are made available to the city’s secondary schools.

Achieving the Purpose

“The festival makes literacy come alive.”
“It bridged the gap between school learning and real life…..”
“With Curriculum for Excellence, this [the festival] is exactly what it’s calling for.”
“It reminded us how enthusiastic boys can actually be – given the right topic.”
“Children got to be part of the experience and not just observers”
“What really surprised the children was that the author had had another career first, and that you could choose writing as a career”
“I felt that the ‘Pobby and Dingan’ workshops were like a CPD session for me”

CHALLENGES

Numbers of schools and pupils attending festival events has grown steadily from the first festival in 1999 with increasingly positive feedback. It reached a zenith in 2006 when the festival was in danger of becoming a victim of its own success, providing opportunities for around 12,000 pupils (c.50% of the school population in Aberdeen) at over 250 events.

On one level, success could be measured by numbers of events, participation levels and reported enjoyment, however, the challenge of how to ensure that teachers maximise opportunities beyond the festival and use festival events as a springboard for further teaching and learning, was evident to the Arts Education Team.

To address a number of interlinked challenges around this issue, the team:

– seconded a principle teacher of drama for 2 years to provide curriculum support and development
– delivered CPD events modelling practice
– support teachers to embed arts and cultural activities within different curriculum areas
– explore with teachers how the Festival extends its reach more broadly and deeply
– re-designed the festival brochure with useful features for teachers
– produced guidelines for working with artists and arts organisations
– offered ideas about follow up activities and how to organise them.
– arranged post festival meetings with teachers to explore next steps
– signpost teachers towards arts and cultural organisations with a good understanding of the new curriculum

Because the festival is programmed from the end of February through to March/April, weather can have an impact on festival events. Inclement weather can affect travel arrangements for artists and performers as well as schools. An ever responsive and creative attitude is required to address this challenge!

IMPACTS

Among many things, teachers reported:

“I got so many good ideas on how to use newspapers and magazines. My whole class joined the library!”
“My class loved the author – they made me ditch the class reader and buy her book!”
“I would say pupils are more eager to share their opinions”
“We’d followed it up with stories of the sea. A girl in my class, who doesn’t like usually writing at all, went home and wrote screeds and screeds……. She came in and showed it, that was quite surprising – she’d obviously been think about it afterwards.”
“We were able to share it with the mother and toddler group in the community centre.”
“Pupils were really interested to find out what we (teachers) read. They thought because we were teachers we read gig books.”
“We went on to ew-write scenes from Macbeth – a unique situation in Primary 3!”
“Storyboard (Wee Hairy Hamish) was a springboard for going on to talk about re-cycling and care of the environment.”
“We’ve done quite a lot of link learning now with puppets, ……. Using toys to talk to each other as well. It’s had a bigger impact than obviously just the language.”