Main Curriculum Focus
HASS: civics and citizenship - people belong to diverse groups within society which can shape identity.
Cross-curricular Links
Literacy: listening and speaking interactions, oral presentations, comprehension strategies, use of software
HASS skills – questioning and research, analysing, communicating and reflecting, evaluating
Technology processes and production skills
Design and Technologies - materials and technologies specialisations
Personal Social & Community Health
Context
Leda Primary School opened in 1992 and became an independent school in 2015. It is situated 40km south of the Perth CBD and is a suburb of Kwinana. There are 605 students at the school and they also have an education support centre on sight. Leda has a large teaching staff of 35 educators and is led by the principal Sarah Hill and four deputy principals. The ICSEA value of Leda is 931 with 58% of families rated in the bottom quarter of the socio-economic distribution and 3% in the top quarter with at least 33% of students with a language background other than English.
Many of our class of 30 students have challenges academically and socially with at least a third of the class having learning challenges and/or special needs. The class generally has a lower ability level with a handful of higher achieving students; however, the group is expertly led by teacher Barbara Hart who is a very experienced and caring educator. Originally from New Zealand Barb beautifully integrates her culture into the classroom creating a calm yet ordered atmosphere. She is also studying in the background to become a literacy specialist. April Roper, who teachers this group of students on a Friday, has also been involved in a number of the Creative Schools sessions.
Shona McGregor, the Creative Schools Creative Practitioner, is a former special needs teacher and professional visual artist who is combining her love of education and the arts to promote creative thinking and learning in Western Australian schools.
WHAT WE DID
Shona began working with Barb’s class in the second session of the program after a changeover of the original creative practitioner. Special regard needed to be given to the planning and organisation of the classes in consideration of a student with different needs who was unable to cope with outdoor sessions during the colder months due to sensory issues. After some brainstorming activities with the students to ascertain their interests, we noticed they had some strong opinions about helping (or not helping) the homeless people in their area and decided to explore this further by creating small sculptures around the topic and holding a debate as to whether we should help the homeless or not. As we progressed and got to know the students better it then seemed important to look deeper at how the students saw themselves and their place in the world within a community facing a variety of societal challenges. We explored the more personal concepts of identity through lens of the Shaun Tan book, The Lost Thing.
How did we make the curriculum come alive?
This class will generally take a couple of sessions to grasp concepts which leads us to plan active, hands-on activities to stimulate curiosity and motivation. We also keep them short and clear on intention to accommodate those with attention issues. We have also chosen to use topics which are connected to the student’s own experiences to aid meaning making and allow for multiple ways of expressing or presenting ideas and to allow for the children with literacy issues to participate and feel success as a learner. Our fun and challenging warm-up activities are popular with the kids too as they help them to get into the right headspace for learning and we find this group respond well to active tasks or those that have an element of competition to hold their attention.
How did we make the Creative Habits of Mind come alive?
The warm-ups are a great starter for talking about the habits and having concrete examples of how we are using them. We often discuss afterwards the habits we have used well and refer to the sub habits using the Creative Schools habit board as a reference.
Small group work is carried out in most sessions to encourage collaboration as many members of the class find it difficult to work with others. Groups are often chosen at random to allow students to learn to deal with different personalities and towards the end of the program they were able to choose their own groups as their collaborative skills improved.
We have fostered inquisitiveness by asking students to justify their responses during sessions and encourage them to ask questions while their imaginative skills have been extended as we gave them design challenges and asked them to use their senses to imagine what it might be like to be homeless. Imagining the inner world of the lost things and creating their own version with personal characteristics has also stretched their skills here.
During reflection time at the end of the session they use corresponding habit coloured Lego to build a creation that reflects the habits they have used well for the day as well as choosing the colour of the habit they found tricky from the Lego box and placing it in the class container to help us with future planning. We have also used laminated habit spider charts in small groups so the students can have a quick reference while they are working on activities that ask them to use the habits and they can use white board markers to make notes that can be wiped away later and used again.
How did we activate student voice and learner agency?
Learner agency has started in small ways by giving the students the time and space to work things out for themselves. They are used to being strictly directed and managed due to their behaviours and as a reaction to the whole school academic programs and routines of the day. These students often need more time to process concepts or even repeat lessons in alternative ways to access the learning and meet the needs of the range of abilities in the group. Asking them to figure out how to move the furniture to make space for a warmup or get into a line in order of their birthdays without our instruction seemed a bridge too far at the beginning of the term. However, gradually our refusal to direct their every move is allowing them to feel that they have control over their actions and power to make decisions in the classroom.
WHAT WAS THE IMPACT?
Student
The students were very reluctant to try anything for themselves without explicit instructions when we began. In one session I asked them to use two pieces of A4 paper to make a larger A3 page for an activity but refused to tell them how to do it. It was a much more challenging activity for them than I had anticipated! Many of the children don’t have a positive vision of themselves as capable learners and are quick to give up when things are challenging. Hearing the constant referencing to the Creative Habits breaks down the process of learning for them so they can easily identify with their own actions and know they are achieving something tangible. They can see they are being persistent and know they are supposed to make mistakes in order to learn. This takes the pressure off them to compare themselves to others and concentrate on the learning steps that they are making rather than the ultimate outcomes.
“In Creative Schools you get to do different things and make things. We do more things with our hands. This is a better way of learning.” (Student)
“We’re learning to be more creative and persistent. It’s useful for when we grow up.” (Student)
“We learn new games and new strategies for thinking. It is good because we get to do so much fun things and learn at the same time.” (Student)
“It is good because it makes me happy and I never get bored.” (Student)
“Creative Schools lessons are very fun because you use your imagination. I don’t really use my imagination for other lessons. Other lessons are boring because I already know the stuff they teach me. You know what’s going to happen in the next Maths lesson. But you don’t know what’s going to happen in the next Creative Schools lesson.” (Student)
“It’s really fun, because we get to work together in groups that we have never been in, we get to work with different people.” (Student)
Teacher
As with most teachers on the program, Barb struggled in the beginning to allow noise and ‘chaos’ to enter the classroom. Relinquishing control of every aspect of the class organisation to ensure timelines and content is covered is often difficult and unsettling but now that the benefits are evident, she is relaxing into flow of the sessions.
Having the class become more self-sufficient in their learning allows Barb the time to connect further with the students and catch those moments of spontaneous learning which are often missed. Seeing the students engaged and working much more collaboratively together also takes the pressure off from being the ultimate keeper of knowledge and allowing the class to work things out for themselves.
“One of my students has come out of his shell so much. He is choosing to be here, surrounded by the noise, just trying to be part of the gang, this is immense for him, it’s amazing.” (Teacher talking about a student with a trauma background)
“This class couldn’t collaborate before, they were very timid, now they collaborate so well, negotiating, having a go. This is great for them. Now everyone is talking and contributing. Normally, it would have just been the alpha kids, this is brilliant.” (Teacher)
“This is the most beautiful social experiment. One of the boys thinks he is stupid and can’t do anything, is over there helping a friend with his work. It is just beautiful.” (Teacher)
Creative Practitioner
Bringing change to an existing classroom, especially one run by an outstanding teacher can be challenging but with patience and creative bravery on everyone’s part it is well worth the effort. Creative Schools asks the creative practitioner to often be out of their comfort zone, endlessly flexible and constantly on the hunt for that illusive spark of wonder and curiosity. We need to trust that the students and teachers will see the benefits of the program and come to love it as much as we do despite it challenging the ideas of what we have come to know of the schooling system. Being part of this program has improved my skills as an educator, a creative and a parent as I put these strategies and Creative Learning Habits into practise in my own life and career. It has helped me to see others around me as lifelong learners who hold the keys to their own learning journey and know that I am very lucky to be part of this process.
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