Year Group: 6

Number of students: 27

Creative’s Name: Kirsty Grieve

Creative Practice: Multifaceted community artist and poet

Term one

Main Curriculum Focus: HASS: Civics and citizenships

Project overview: We created social science exercises to encapsulate the environmental and social impact that changing modes of transport, invasive pests and climate change have created. Using these elements, we created discussion and role-played modes and roles of power, roles and responsibility of individuals, collective groups, and political changes over time.

Term two

Main Curriculum Focus: Health

Project overview: Demonstrations and discussions of the impact of positive self-thinking, understanding how and where in our body we hold emotions, generating discussions on how to self-regulate. Guidance on how to negotiate differing opinions without generating arguments.

“My children are having so much fun in year 6 that they don’t want to go to Year 7.” (Parent)

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WHAT WE DID

The Down the Rabbit Hole with Alice project began with the idea of putting Bayswater under the microscope. Borrowing from the adage “think global, act local” we incorporated multiple areas of the HASS and Health curriculum into the project to show how changes have occurred and how we can activate change. Using the local community and infrastructure was paramount to both terms of our work.

Stop motion: Discussing the impact of how movement and transport affects the growth of Bayswater we had students create stop motion animation to demonstrate the following areas of transport and their impact on the local area. Feet, boats, horses, motorised wheels, trains, and flying machines.

Persuading Pests: Students were presented with the idea that animals could understand our words, so maybe we could persuade them from doing things that harm the environment. Groups were formed to create persuasive arguments using positive ideas to encourage the polyphagous shot-hole borer, cats, foxes, rabbits, and camels into not being pests. Processes of lobbying and political persuasion were discussed. (As a fun sideline students were asked to add to their presentation with as many “P” words as possible.

Mascots: Borrowing the idea and respecting the way that the Noongar custodians of the land care for animals, students were allocated one of the below mentioned animals that frequent the school and were given the objective to care for that animal and its habitat.

Koolbardi (Magpie), Djitti djitti (Willy wag tail), Karak (red tail cockatoo), Wardung (raven), Kyooya (motor boat frog), Bardee (edible grubs), Wandi (skink), Bibdjool (gecko), Kyooya (motorbike frog)

Each animal then created a group. From this we formed puppets and had each puppet group research what their creature needed best to survive. These ideas became the basis of three puppet shows that were pivotal in both Health and HASS researching personal growth and political change.

Local Council: On behalf of each puppet group the students generated a question to present to the City of Bayswater Ordinary Council meeting. The three questions were well developed expressions of interest trying to find better means of personal and council help regarding Q1. Pollution in local waterways, Q2. Local native tree planting in disused areas and Q3. Higher density residential buildings to reduce urban sprawl. Please see page 14 of the 23/7/24 ordinary council meeting minutes. Through this there were some brilliant interactions with local council, who have encouraged the school to keep the questions coming!

“I’d like to extend my thanks to Bayswater Primary School for the invitation to attend the Year 6 Creative School's showcase. It was thoroughly enjoyable and I was astounded at the confident presentation skills, inquisitive thinking, and maturity of the Year 6 students. I'd like to continue the "conversation" generated by the questions put to Council and have taken a personal action to follow these up to see what demonstrated action can be provided back to the students so they realise the full potential of this adaptive learning style.” (Local Community: CR Josh Everson: North Ward City of Bayswater)

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TERM 3

Feelings: In groups students were asked to draw a large outline of a person. Students were invited to use pictures, with examples such as lightning and clouds to show how their body reacted to each of the following states of being: Excited, Silly, Happy, Angry, Brave, Scared. This exercise displayed quickly how much the body holds feelings. Students were then asked how they could regulate their feelings and with sticky notes wrote and drew different self-regulation ques on their figures.

Local heritage walk: We took the students on a heritage walk around Bayswater to show how the community had grown, and discuss the older uses of buildings. This exercise was used to display the growth and community strength of the area. We also utilised being outdoors to take photos that we could use to describe our feelings, discussing ideas of how growth amongst concrete, abandoned rubbish and the likes have been used by artist to help depict emotions, therein helping the students understand how art can be utilised when they don’t have the words that embody their feelings.

Feelings Map: Using photos from our walk we created a large-scale collage. Our feelings photos were placed within a student led map image to show the ebb and flow of community, connections and feelings that surrounded us. We were very fortunate that as part of our map formation we were visited and assisted by local artist Vanessa Bradley, with her focus on local history and concepts of human interaction so aligned with our project, she showcased her painting Seams and Spaces in Between: The Ann Whatley story and add a rich insight into the collage collation.

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How did we make the curriculum come alive?

Puppetry, stop motion, a heritage trail walk, by incorporating local community, humour and more.

Providing engaging learning experiences is at the forefront of what I aspire to do every day as a teacher and Creative Schools helped me to elevate this to a whole new level. Everyone should put their hand up to give the Creative Schools program a go!

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How did we make the 5 Habits of Learning come alive?

The five habits were brought to life through multiple humorous agencies, such as warm up stretches that described them and impromptu theatre play. They were used as agencies and after our workshops students were asked how they used the habits and which ones were most prominent in each practice.

The Showcase at the end of Term 3 highlighted not only the amazing pieces of work the students completed but also how Creative Schools goes beyond the classroom. Teaching beyond the classroom is how we help to build lifelong learners, and I believe my class will look back on their time at primary school and always remember how epic Creative Schools was. Community members, families and local Council Members attended the showcase, and the feedback was incredibly positive. Parents wished the students learned in this pedagogical approach all day every day!

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How did we activate student voice and learner agency?

We listened, observed, and discussed both as a teacher and creative partnership and as a conglomerative with the students regularly and tailored our sessions to reflect what was working with the large groups. We also

“My Favourite skill is now collaborative, I usually work alone, but now I’ve been able to work with a lot of other people and feel what it’s like to learn with a whole group.” (Student)

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WHAT WAS THE IMPACT?

Teacher Alice Bull’s reflection:

“The Creative Schools process is like nothing I’ve ever experienced as a teacher, and it was an exciting and inspiring way to reconsider how we deliver the curriculum. I am already looking into ways to incorporate what I have learned into Term 4 and beyond. As a teacher, it was refreshing to work with a Creative Practitioner who cared so much about children, the power of education, and our community, without the lens of being a classroom teacher. Creative Schools did a fantastic job of pairing Kirsty and I. My class absolutely adored Kirsty and the Creative Schools program. There were laughs, friendships forged and times for critical reflection. By the end of the program, the students could identify how they used each Creative Habit and trait, which demonstrates what an effective program Creative Schools is.

“I wish my child learned like this all day every day.” (Parent)