Category Archives: Partnerships

Imaginate Commissions for 2015 – Deadline 25 April

Imaginate is seeking proposals for two new productions to be presented in schools in 2015. This opportunity is open to individual artists/producers; arts organisations (including venues) and partnerships. The closing date for submissions is Friday 25 April 2014.

The commissioned pieces should be created specifically for school children in one of the following age ranges;

P1 to P4

P5 to P7

The initial tour will cover two weeks in schools prior to the Imaginate Festival 2015, followed by a week of performances at Festival.  The dates for the Imaginate Festival next year are 11 to 18 May 2015.

Download full information here: http://www.imaginate.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/EXPO-2015-Commissions-information.pdf

School Improvement Partnership Programme

The School Improvement Partnership Programme (SIPP) is a solution-focused approach to Scotland’s attainment issues with a focus on innovating to tackle educational inequality. It draws on the wealth of international educational research and practice demonstrating that the most effective school improvements are locally owned and led by teachers and school leaders working in partnership and collaboration with like-minded professionals.

There are currently nine different kinds of partnerships developing within and across education authorities. The programme aims to encourage staff to learn from each other, experiment with their practice and monitor and evaluate change. A key feature of the SIPP is the evaluation support being provided by researchers from The Robert Owen Centre for Educational Change. For more information click on the following link:  The School Improvement Partnership Programme

or contact enquiries@educationscotland.gov.uk

Gaming project opens up new worlds of creativity – TES article

“Part of it is embracing uncertainty, being open to whatever comes up,” said Dangerous Ideas curator Karen Lawson. “It’s about a belief that everybody is creative, and helping them to realise that.”

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6400535

TES article exploring the Festival of Dangerous Ideas and how two primary, secondary and colleges from Scotland and Norway collaborated on an innovative online gaming project that developed new ways of learning.

Inspired by my Museum, International Writing Competition

An encounter with a museum can be a life-changing experience, a realisation of the past or an inspiration for the future. If you have a poem, short story or reportage inspired by a museum you have visited, tell us and your words could be selected for publication.

http://www.sampad.org.uk/learning/opportunities/competitions/

It could be the space, architecture, design, an object or objects in the museum or even the museum/exhibition curator who has inspired you.

  • Further to the overwhelming response to the launch of the competition, we have now extended the age limit so that any writer from anywhere in the world from the age of 16 upwards can take part.
  • Entries can be up to 400 words.
  • Only ONE entry is allowed per person
  • LAST DATE FOR ENTRIES IS MONDAY 10 FEBRUARY 2014

New report on Assessing Creativity across many subjects available on Creativity Portal

Led by the University of Dundee and funded by Creative Scotland, this project gathered the views of three groups of professionals working within the expressive arts with the aim of identifying effective and innovative models of assessment of creativity. These models were documented and used to develop case studies in the format of a teaching resource for application across the whole curriculum. The resource was piloted and evaluated by the research and development team in collaboration with teachers and initial teacher education (ITE) providers.

Click here to find the downloadable file:

http://creativityportal.org.uk/?q=assessing+creativity

The project develops the links between arts organisations, schools and ITE providers through data collection; shared analysis and evaluation; and through the development, application and dissemination of findings. In this way stronger partnerships have been established as recommended in Teaching  Scotland’s  Future  (Donaldson  2010)

Kids in Museums – Takeover Day Scotland 2013

Takeover Day Scotland 2013

On 28 November Scotland’s museums are being taken over. Will you be inviting children and young people to be in charge of your museum?

Takeover Day Scotland is a celebration of children and young people’s contribution to museums, galleries and historic homes. It’s a day on which they are given meaningful roles, working alongside staff and volunteers to participate in the life of the museum.

Edinburgh Creative Conversation with Don Ledingham

Creative Conversations are Edinburgh’s now well established strategic response to developing the Creative Learning Network for the City. They feature as a case study in the recently published 3-18 Curriculum Impact project Creativity Across Learning. This successful approach has been picked up by colleauges in other local authorities and Education Scotland. You help make them the success they are and your invitation to the next Creative Conversation on Creative Leadership is attached.

Creative Conversation Invitation – Don Ledingham – download the pdf invite

Date for your diary:

The first of the 2013/14 Creative Conversations will be on Monday 25th November at 4pm for 4.30 till 5.45pm with wine and canapes afterwards (venue to follow with confirmation of attendance). I am delighted that our Creative Catalyst this session is Don Ledingham.

Don Ledingham’s Creative Conversation is titled ‘Try a Little Tenderness….’ which may seem like the wrong song title for a session on Creative Leadership, but with Don as the Creative Catalyst, you can expect a few surprises! Don talks about forgiveness in leadership and about creating space for creativity and innovation. He thinks aloud and in public, challenging other leaders to open up and let go. He now works with Drummond International and will go global soon, so catch him while you can. No mere theorist, Don has been a Head Teacher and Director. This will be a memorable start to this session’s Creative Conversations. Coffee is from 4pm and the Creative Conversation will begin at 4.30.

As with all previous Creative Conversations, David Cameron will facilitate the discussion. You are invited to continue the conversation with Don, David and colleagues over wine and canapes at around 5.45/6pm.

Places are filling up very quickly – please email the address in the pdf  if you would like to attend and receive full venue details and confirmation of your place.

Food for Thought fund event and project update

Food for Thought is a national programme and fund managed by Education Scotland which aims to build capacity and confidence to improve learning and teaching within food education.

To date, 61 projects have been funded via the Food for Thought: Education Fund giving practitioners scope to explore food education across Curriculum for Excellence. Participating schools are required to work in partnership with a local business and to connect with national initiatives such as the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

For an overview of these projects and summary descriptions of a selection of them, download the following document:

Food for Thought Education Fund Information

Participating practitioners and those interested in applying in the next funding round (to be announced in early November) are invited to attend a forthcoming event:

Food for Thought: Education Fund Monitoring and Support Event

Friday 1st November at Tollcross Swimming Pool, Glasgow

Download the event invitation here: Food for Thought event

Scotland’s Creative Learning Plan and Curriculum Impact Report on Creativity Across Learning published

Exciting news this week as two important documents relating to creativity across learning were launched at the Scottish Learning Festival:

Published by Creative Scotland, Scotland’s Creative Learning Plan aims to inspire educational policy makers and practitioners to utilise creativity to benefit learners in schools and other settings.

The Creative Learning Plan is the result of work by a partnership of organisations working across Scotland in education and creativity and sets out an ambitious vision for creativity in education over the next 10 years.

Among the changes the partnership is aiming for are:

  • New policies and plans supporting creativity throughout Scotland
  • More creative teaching practices and support for creative initiatives within local authorities, schools and places of learning
  • More support for and understanding of the value of creativity and experiential learning by parents and carers.

Find out more and download the Plan here: Creative Learning Plan

Education Scotland’s Curriculum Impact Report on Creativity Across Learning sets out key findings from a review of current practice in Scotland and focuses specifically on the development of creativity skills in learners. It proposes a definition of creativity is and identifies a set of core creative skills or attributes.

‘Scotland needs to prepare its young people for life and work in an uncertain economic and social environment if they are to thrive in an era of increasingly rapid change. The need for a well-developed set of higher-order skills will be a key part of the toolkit they will need and the ability to think creatively will be one of the most important tools in that toolkit’.

Download the Creativity Across Learning 3-18 Curriculum Impact Report here:

Creativity Across Learning Report

Mentoring performance makers…

I wanted to share with you a piece of work that Electric Theatre in D&G (who developed the Big Burns Supper Festival) are currently taking forward in our region. Its called ‘Make’ and its an incubator project that seeks to develop and promote the work of emerging performance makers from the region (most of which are young emerging artists).

Make is a residential laboratory for six performance makers who are about to start a year long journey to make six new pieces of original work in Dumfries & Galloway. Guest specialists will help to inspire and cultivate the performance making process by providing mentoring to each performance project through an intensive period of creative development. Each performance maker has created an idea for a new piece of work – and that work will begin it’s journey somewhere in Dumfries & Galloway.

I have attached information that tells you more about the project, but the incubation period also allows the makers to be mentored to understand and develop funding routes for their own projects.

I will let you know when performances finally hit the theatres!

One of the six makers is a former Transform Dumfries participant, and great to see that learning coming full circle! (he is second year student at the Royal Conservatoire – Directing). Electric Theatre is a key CLN partner in D&G and some of the other makers have worked directly on educational projects with us through CREATE and recent CLN activity.

We have other exciting work with Electric Theatre that I hope to share with you soon.

Lesley

Make Performance D&G