Education Scotland is leading a systematic review of the Scottish curriculum called the Curriculum Improvement Cycle, to ensure it remains up to date and relevant for children and young people. Over the coming weeks we’ll be sharing lots of articles from practitioners and a weekly mini-podcast series focusing on the core competencies and the story so far. Our first article comes from Christina Andrews from Mackie Academy in Stonehaven and is all about the importance of creativity.
“Interesting! I learnt stuff I never thought I’d get chance to, and came up with solutions to problems I never knew needed solving.”
This is what one of my former Solarpunk Islanders said about their experience of a creative thinking focused course. This comment came after my asking them, a year after it finished, if they could sum up the course. This is a student who had struggled to engage with some of his courses that year and within the Solarpunk Island course found a voice, confidence in his ability and positively engaged with the learning experience.
It had a lasting impact, and at the time another of my students had said the course gave them a “chance to breathe.” It gave them a chance to think and share ideas without shame or worry about making mistakes, or being considered ridiculous or having impossible ideas. I believe in the power of Alice in Wonderland and the lasting message that the impossible is only so if you believe it is. Creativity for me is about encouraging the impossible thoughts in order to find real and possible solutions.
Due to the success of the Solarpunk Island course I facilitated, I was invited to join the Curriculum Review for Creativity Core as a Competency group. My everyday teaching is mostly RME and RMPS, and I did have some hesitance joining the group in case the focus would be on the creative arts and I would not be as helpful. However, being part of the curriculum review experience has opened my eyes to see that many others think about creative thinking in the same way I do.
The world of creativity is not limited to people’s idea of it being focused on just expressive arts, whether this be in musical, acting or art form. Creativity and creative thinking leads people to think in new ways. It feeds innovation, as creative thinking engages people in problem solving. One of the greatest aspects of creativity as a core competency is embedding this understanding in our education system. Doing so will allow people to know that it is not your ability to draw that will aid you in creative thinking but your ability to think and often to think outside the box.
The curriculum review process has been considering a range of views throughout the process. During our most recent whole day event the data on views that had been gathered from children and young people, and ‘critical friends’ on the current understanding of the core competencies and their relative importance was shared. This was then considered when we attempted to plan how we could implement the Big Ideas, and how we would know we were seeing them effectively in class.
An activity we have seen a few times on different focus days has been looking at where creativity, as well as the other competencies, tend to fit within curriculum areas. The power and importance of the core competencies though is that they can fit within all, and creativity absolutely can and does do this when given an opportunity. The days have been productive at considering the rationale for creativity, the why that we think makes it important.
The Why? OECD reports that creativity and critical thinking prepares young people for innovative economics and improves wellbeing. Education should be supporting young people to enter into the world post-school equipped with the skills they need, and creativity is integral to this. The World Economic Forum shows that ‘creativity, originality and initiative’ is within the top 10 skills required in 2025 and it remains within the top 10 in the predictions for the future. The need to create a framework providing schools greater guidance on how to embed creativity across the curriculum, is so that we can review what students understand, know and can do within this area. We need support to know how we can assess students’ capacity to generate diverse and original ideas, just as PISA Creative Thinking assessment does.
For me creativity represents freedom. I hope for children and young people to be within an education system that encourages them to have freedom of thought. The freedom to imagine, to create, to push ideas, and collaboratively create. The Big Ideas created by the group over previous days were then adapted after feedback gathering and reflection and are focused on this understanding of creativity. Creativity as a core competency is to enable young people to have agency, to encourage open mindedness, imagination and curiosity, and provide a chance to truly explore opportunities and create solutions.
As a former Solarpunker of mine said:
“I’ve loved how creative we have had to be.”
The main difference between my Solarpunk Island class and my other lessons is that we make a lot more decisions about what we are going to do and it is much more interactive.” Another said the main difference was “having creative freedom and people behaved better (due to it).”
Creativity as a core competency can aid this being true across all lessons.
Find out more about Solarpunk Island – Solarpunk Island – Daydream Believers
If you are keen to hear and learn more about the Curriculum Improvement Cycle (CIC) you might be interested to listen to the Education Scotland Learning Conversations Podcast with Education Scotland Chief Executive, Gillian Hamilton, and Ollie Bray, Strategic Director, on the CIC or read this recent article from TESS Scotland – CfE review: ‘Evolving Curriculum for Excellence, not ripping it up’. You can also visit the CIC Web Portal / Glow Blog and from here sign up for the termly eNewsletter.
