The introduction of Curriculum for Excellence across Scotland lays out the fundamentals of the basics of education and how- we as practitioners- can best prepare students for the future. Creativity has a specific role to play in providing children with skills to cope with challenging situations and transitions throughout their lives. Creativity also sits at the top of Blooms Taxonomy of skills within the ‘Scottish Government High Order Skills Excellence Group report of 2011. Allowing children to express themselves in a multitude of forms across the board (Education Scotland,2013.)
Today in music, we became familiar with the learning tool: Charanga. This online music source was founded in England- expanding to Scotland due to its popularity across schools. The website was adapted to accommodate for the Scottish curriculum and is used in classrooms all over Scotland to support music lessons. This tool provides educators with lesson plans and assessments to suit a wide range of learners with varying needs. Allowing the chance for all children to participate in music. Everything on this source can also be downloaded which can be very useful as wifi in not always reliable in schools. With the support of charanga, there is no excuses as to why teachers avoid teaching music in the classroom.
Today in our last session of visual arts, we were tasked in pairs to complete questions based on a given image from ‘Emotional Learning Cards.’ We recorded our responses on video: analysis of our emotional learning card From this task, we were able to appreciate the various aspects of the card and voice our own perspective on this. This form of communicating is an excellent way for children to build up confidence speaking about sensitive subjects and not holding back on speaking their mind- remaining respectful when doing so. This format permits children to engage in art within a different format (Pearson and Wilson, 2009.) Engaging with this form of Art in the classroom could be very useful in promoting children to express their emotions- additionally- try comprehend the wide range of feelings they could feel during different time periods in their life.
We also discussed today how- it is only a minority who choose to be assessed within creativity on school visits. Often, due to the fact, teachers have a fear of the unknown and creativity introduces uncertainty in lessons as there is no boundaries when it comes to creativity. When implementing lessons around creativity, abandon learning intentions. Instead, ensure there is a problem you are seeking to solve.
To conclude, we need to remember as upcoming teachers, integrated arts holds equal importance to subjects such as maths and English. It is essential to time manage efficiently, in order to, include all areas of the curriculum to ensure we are providing the best learning experience for our students encompassing all learning tools to aid our experience.
References:
Education Scotland (2013) Creativity Across Learning 3-18 [online] available: https://moodle.uws.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/36809/mod_resource/content/2/Creativity3to18.pdf [Accessed: 28 November, 2019]
Pearson, M. and Wilson, H. (2009) Using Expressive Arts to Work with Mind, Body and Emotions. Psychotherapy In Australia. Vol.16(1), pp. 55-66.
