Artworks research findings published

As part of the ArtWorks Scotland Programme, Creative Scotland has commissioned a research project into the skills, knowledge and experience that artists (across all artforms) need to develop, to work to a high standard in participatory settings, such as schools, prisons or communities. The research will directly impact on and inform the direction and content of the ArtWorks Scotland Programme as well as developments taken forward beyond the life of ArtWorks to support artists to work with groups of people in Scotland.

The research findings can be downloaded from Creative Scotland’s website here: Artworks Commissioned Research

Taking a closer look at the National Assessment Resource: A professional learning resource

Education Scotland’s assessment team has published a professional learning resource for practitioners.  It provides an opportunity to reflect on effective practice in learning, teaching and assessment, drawing on the work published on the National Assessment Resource (NAR).  It also provides a structured look at the NAR flow chart as a tool for planning effective learning, teaching, moderation and assessment.

The resource can be ‘dipped into’ by individual practitioners keen to reflect and improve on their assessment practice as well as pairs, groups of practitioners, associated school groups (ASGs) or clusters working collegiately to reflect on and improve practice.

The resource can be downloaded here: TACLAN_onlinepdf

Careers in Theatre – 26 February, Glow TV

Join the Festival Theatre Edinburgh, The Lyceum Theatre and The Traverse Theatre’s unique interactive one day careers event live on Glow TV on Tuesday 26th February for 3 unique sessions, each one hosted at a different theatre.

Front of House and Box Office Session – 10 – 11.30am

In the first session find out how the operational side of the Traverse Theatre works with representatives from Front of House and Box Office teams. This workshop will explain and explore how we go about creating the best possible experience for our customers/audiences before and after they have been to one of our shows. Sign up and join us in Glow TV!

Technical Theatre – 12 – 1.30pm
During this second event find out more about a day in the life of a theatre technician, with Graham Raith, Head of Electrics at the Festival and King’s Theatres. Including on stage visit to see Scottish Opera’s set of Massenet’s Werther. Sign up and join us in Glow TV!

Acting and Directing – 2.30- 3.30pm

During this session learn more about acting and directing in a Producing Theatre, whilst meeting some of the people involved in Time and the Conways. A great chance to find out how to make a career as an actor or director. Sign up and join us in Glow TV!

The event is aimed at 5th & 6th year pupils interested in pursuing a career in the theatre, and will also act as a CPD session for Drama, Guidance/Support Teachers and Career’s Advisors. It may also be of interest to upper primary and early secondary pupils also interested in the theatre.

Join us for some or all of these exciting events and learn more about the careers involved in theatre and remember that all the events will be recorded and available in Glow TV’s Watch Again section.

West Lothian schools explore creativity in learning and in curriculum design

Terrifyingly Exciting

West Lothian’s Creative Learning Network

Friday 15th March from 1.30pm at Howden Park Centre

What would happen if learning started with a question that was tricky to answer conclusively?

Imagine it started with the unknown, a world where nothing is fixed until it is chosen to be contained, an adventure that has not yet been lived?

Over the past 7 months teams of brave and imaginative learning cohorts from 4 secondary schools in West Lothian have been working with Paul Gorman from Visible Fictions Theatre Company to explore the fabric of creative learning.  These collectives comprise of teachers, pupils and artists.  By working together they have begun to unpick some of the barriers, perceived or real, that schools face when attempting to establish a creative vision.

This symposium will offer an insight in the schools’ journeys to better understand the benefits of a creative approach to curriculum design.  Over the course of an afternoon you will discover what Bathgate would look like if it became independent from Scotland, understand how the Scottish Government of the year 2050 deals with the hurricane season and be moved by the plight of a Zebra desperately searching for its soul.  Welcome to Creative Learning – West Lothian style.

Please come along and join us on Friday 15th March from 1.30pm at Howden Park Centre, Livingston to hear what has been learnt by the schools participating in this years Creative Learning Network project in West Lothian.

This initiative aims to champion creativity across learning and teaching in schools and communities within the overarching context of Curriculum for Excellence, bringing long-term benefits to learners.

To book your place please contact Fiona Macfarlane, Arts Officer (Learning) either by email: fiona.macfarlane2@westlothian.gov.uk or call 01506 773873 by Friday 8th March.

The Creative Learning Networks Fund is managed by Education Scotland, in partnership with Creative Scotland to support the development of Creative Learning Networks (CLNs) in local authority areas across Scotland.

Forth Valley Creative Conversations Programme announced

You are invited to the Forth Valley Creative Learning Creative Conversations programme.

Thursday 7th March | 4.30pm – 6.30pm | Stirling University:

What is Creative Learning? Keir Bloomer

Keir Bloomer will explore two distinct but linked ways of answering the question what is creative learning? Is it about approaches to learning that are creative?  In other words, is it the creativity of the teacher that is most important?  Alternatively, is the aim to develop the creativity of the learner?  He will consider the connections between these ideas and the principles of constructivist pedagogy – the idea that making meaning is the central intellectual task in learning.

For further details and to book tickets click here: Keir Bloomer Poster

Wednesday 17th April | 4.30pm – 6.30pm | Tolbooth, Stirling:

How do we Capture and Measure Creativity? Paul Collard, Chief Executive, Creativity, Culture, Education

Increasing attention is being given to developing the creativity of children and young people. From Japan to Chile, within Europe and across the US this has become a major preoccupation of educators. But how do you know what creativity looks like, and can you tell if it is being developed?  To support their work CCE commissioned extensive research into the definition and measurement of creativity and trialled numerous approaches in schools. In this presentation Paul Collard will provide a constructive and practical guide to identifying creativity in the classroom to enable teachers and creative practitioners to inspire children and young people.

For further details and to book tickets click here: Paul Collard Leaflet


Forth Valley Creative Learning is a new collaboration between Education in Falkirk, Stirling and Clackmannanshire, creating together opportunities to explore creativity and creative learning

To find out more about Forth Valley Creative Learning visit: www.forthvalleycreativelearning.wordpress.com

Scottish Borders Cultural Ambassador wins GTCS Professional Recognition Award for Creative Learning

Sarah Gulliver-Goodal, Cultural Ambassador for Scottish Borders CLN, was recently awarded the GTCS professional recognition award for Creative Learning. Here she writes about the process of applying for professional recognition and what the award means to her.

“Going for Professional Recognition in Creativity was a huge decision and a long term personal commitment. The first step was very deliberately looking at my own practice and my place within school by evaluating and reflecting on my work. I felt able to go ahead once I was based in one primary school rather than travelling between schools, even though I do have three distinct roles within the school: Art CST, Nursery Teacher and PT cover teaching in P1.

Art and creativity within the primary school is very important to me and I wanted to be part of a change that would see creativity/ arts being a key aspect of learning across the curriculum at every stage. Professional recognition for me included cpd training, professional reading, gallery visits and leading a whole school creative arts project over 12 months which culminated in an exhibition in our local town hall. I benefitted from networking with visual artists, sculptors, sound artists and other professionals working in the Heritage Hub, in SBC planning and at Historic Scotland. Following the project work and the public exhibition the children are much more aware of their own creativity and they have more confidence in the quality of their own work. Staff readily use my expertise both within formal art sessions and informally as a resource for practical help.

Using reflection and evaluation of my work at each stage of the project has benefitted me as an individual and as a teacher. My planning and assessments are more focused now, I’m more aware of actively involving pupils in their learning and of working with pupils in new ways.

Professional recognition has been a very valuable learning tool for me not just a one-off cpd session but a way of working from now on.

The certificate presentation ceremony hosted by the GTCS at the Scottish Parliament was inspirational in itself and it was lovely to be supported in this by my Head Teacher, Maggie Norman. I love my work and get a lot of personal satisfaction back from the extra effort; it felt really good to receive recognition.”

Sarah Gulliver-Goodall

Cultural Ambassador, Scottish Borders Creative Learning Network

To read Scottish Borders CLN blog click here

Festival of Dangerous Ideas 13-21 June 2013

What’s your dangerous idea for education?

Dangerous Ed is back!!! Colleges Development Network is delighted to announce that the Festival of Dangerous Ideas will run again this year from 13-21 June 2013.

This year’s festival will be launched in Glasgow by world leading social entrepreneur Mel Young.  Mel is President and CEO of the Homeless World Cup and Co-founder of The Big Issue in Scotland.  Through his experience of working with the homeless, Mel has developed his own dangerous ideas for education.

There will be events happening throughout the week all over Scotland – co-created by people who are passionate about education. Events so far include:

  • A walk on the wild side – an adventure through the wilderness – exploring and creating over the weekend
  • Dangerous assessment – revolutionizing marking and assessment
  • Creative and dangerous – conversations across the nation
  • Game on – creating learning environments virtually
  • Un-conference – you decide the agenda
  • Online forums with dangerous dares and job swaps
  • Wicked problems, creative solutions
  • Resource-free – learn to engage learners for nothing
  • Waste-free world – why recycling isn’t the answer
  • Emporium of dangerous Ideas – trade your dangerous ideas.

Get involved and create your own dangerous event – register by completing the event submission form no later than 31 March 2013.

You can also join the Festival LinkedIn group, find us on Facebook and follow @Dangerous_Ed on Twitter.

Creativity Matters Dumfries & Galloway

In 2012-2013, the Creative Learning Network in Dumfries and Galloway is aiming to promote and sustain creative approaches to learning and teaching through a series of seminars which we are calling Creativity Matters. The aim of the seminars is to demonstrate the practical application of creativity within a learning and teaching context examining amongst other things – why creativity is a crucial skill for 21st century life. Guest speakers are invited to give their professional and contextualised views, thoughts and in some cases research findings on creativity drawing from their individual fields of expertise.

Our most recent seminar was held in Gatehouse on the 12th February as part of the in-service day, and we had the pleasure of hearing from OBE Paul Smith chair of the trustees for Creativity, Culture and Education www.cceengland.org and Alan McLean http://www.themotivatedschool.co.uk/alanMcLean.html author the Motivated school and Motivating every learner with another book in the pipeline.

Paul gave the seminar a strong flavour of creative and cultural systems and policy from his work with Creativity, Culture and Education and how to build on a creative generation, examining with us the conditions for creative and cultural education. One thing that will stay with me from the conversation was the point about working to create the demand rather than perpetuate the supply of opportunities, something that we as advocates of creative and cultural learning will strive to develop.

The theme of Alan’s presentation was creativity and wellbeing and wellbeing and creativity, with a dissection of autonomy and how the differing needs and abilities of learners can fuel and contribute towards creative participation. He had us all thinking rather deeply about learner’s needs and the Powers of Creative Participation and their relationship to the four capacities.

Also on the 12th February, we were very fortunate to have Janice Kirkpatrick Creative Director of Graven Images http://www.graven.co.uk/ at Troqueer primary school in Dumfries talking to primary and secondary Art & Design specialists. Janice shared her creative process and practice in relation to the work of Graven and re-enforced key messages about adaptive skills and resilience across a variety of platforms. Janice also exemplified how her company has grown and developed as a flexible model of how to work across the disciplines. It was ideal for the creative learning network to have someone like Janice who is actually from the region and attended primary and secondary school in Dumfries – what inspiration!

Speaker biog Janice Kirkpatrick Speaker biog OBE Paul Roberts Speaker biog Alan Mclean

You may also be interested to know that we asked participants to complete a learning from experience exit card, and to note what the event has inspired them to do… I will be following up the inspiration in the summer term, and will provide an update as to how things are progressing…

example of exit pass

Lesley

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