My Creative School Learning Resource
Arts-led, schools focused resources exploring new approaches to school development

Welcome to the My Creative School Learning Resource: a selection of tools, case studies and writing based on the learning from a two-year partnership with primary schools across South London.

My Creative School (MCS) was a two-year programme of arts-led ‘Creative Catalyst’ projects which ran from 2016 to 2018. These projects forged new models of working between artists and teachers, developing creative approaches to school improvement and curriculum delivery.

Three project models formed the cornerstone of MCS:

Pioneer teachers: Teachers empowered to pioneer new ideas
Immersive adventure: Igniting appetites for learning
Child leaders: Children directing their own learning

These models have informed the MCS Learning Resource and are woven throughout the tools and case studies. As you continue to develop new approaches to your own school improvement / development priorities, we hope the MCS Learning Resource will support you to pioneer new ideas, create immersive learning experiences and support children to lead, with the arts at the centre.

The resources
Whether you are a senior leader or class teacher, we hope these resources will support schools at strategy level, in classrooms and teachers’ own development:

The Narrative of My Creative School
Compendium of Ideas
Framework for Change
Stories and Tools
Case Studies
The MCS Learning Resource can also be download as a PDF containing all three chapters in full (Narrative, Compendium and Framework tools).

Contents
Introduction
Why should we prioritise creative approaches
to teaching and learning?
How a Creative Catalyst ethos supports schools
By MCS Programme Researcher Sarah B Davies
Adaptive Practice: Creating the conditions for new approaches to grow
By MCS Creative Advocate Greg Klerkx
Logbook of Ideas
06
07
08
10
13
06
In this resource
This resource contains three short essays to introduce you
to the MCS programme and why it made such a difference
in participating schools – and how a similar approach could
make a difference in yours, too.
Introduction
Chapter 1 – The Narrative of My Creative School
07
Life skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, risk taking and
resilience are increasingly important to modern life. A 2017
Sutton Trust report identified that 88% of young people, 94%
of employers and 97% of teachers consider them as important
as academic qualifications – if not more so.1
Many economists
and business leaders argue that, in years to come, such flexible,
creative skills will be more critical to employability than engineering,
data analysis and any number of other STEM-driven subjects.2
Nearly three-quarters of teachers surveyed by the Sutton Trust
said the arts were the most effective way for children to learn
these skills, whether in school or through extracurricular activities.
Schools rated ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted also tend to prioritise the
arts and creative approaches to teaching and learning.3
Why, then, are arts on the back foot in terms of funding and
school strategy across the country? Even schools with strong arts
provision can often find it challenging to use it as a driver for
more powerful, impactful learning experiences.
My Creative School (MCS) aimed to give the context, training and
opportunity for teachers to embrace and engage with the arts as
a powerful teaching tool. We did this by pairing working creative
practitioners – in art, drama, dance, and music – with classroom
teachers, so they could learn from each other and understand
how best an arts-led approach could address key challenges as
identified in school development plans. We also provided CPD
for both the creative professionals and teachers, together and
separately, to deepen this exploration and to help embed
the learning.
Most of our participating teachers weren’t arts subject specialists;
many began their MCS journey believing that they ‘weren’t creative’
or ‘couldn’t do art’ or performance. Such attitudes can easily transfer
to young people, so a consistent theme across the two years of
the MCS programme was that the creative skills that underpin the
arts are inherent in everyone: the arts just help bring them into the
light. Thus did we find PE specialists happily making sculptures or
maths subject leads creating treasure hunts across an entire school.
The creative impulse is a human impulse, one that schools play a
critical role in nurturing and developing. Creativity is the engine
that built modern Britain and it will be arguably even more
important in future, not least in our schools. My Creative School
offered a pathway to that future, and we hope you find the
lessons we’ve learned as useful and powerful as we have.
1. Life Lessons: Improving essential life skills for young people, Carl
Cullinane and Rebecca Montecute, The Sutton Trust, October 2017
2. Broadly speaking, STEM includes any school subjects that cover aspects
of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. See for example ‘Full STEAM ahead
as arts and tech shape future of skills together’, Julie Feest, The Engineer, 5 July 2018,
accessed on 12 July 2018 at https://www.theengineer.co.uk/steam-future-skills/
3. Why do good and outstanding OFSTED schools demonstrate a creative
mind set and an understanding of the importance of creativity?, Drew Rowlands,
IVE White Paper, 2017
Why should we prioritise creative
approaches to teaching and learning?
Chapter 1 – The Narrative of My Creative School
08
More than an art project delivered in school, the MCS
programme aimed to do something different.
Participating schools in the MCS programme received three
terms of CPD and support, and created a term-long Creative
Catalyst project.
A Creative Catalyst project supported a long-term ambition
for change. Designed to support the needs of a school, these
projects were delivered in partnership between a teacher
and a creative practitioner, who brought their creative strategies
to a school’s challenge.
The MCS programme was underpinned by a set of principles
which supported the success of our schools’ Creative Catalyst
projects. These were:
SDP-Driven
Creative Catalyst projects were developed in response
to priorities identified in School Development/Improvement
Plans (SDP).
Arts-Led
The arts were employed to support school-wide shifts in results
and culture. The creative practitioners used their skills to assist
schools to investigate an identified school priority in a different way.
Teacher focused
Teachers’ learning was given as much priority as the arts project.
Supporting the embedding of learning into practice was a key
element, creating greater potential to develop change at a
systemic level. Continuous strategies for consolidating learning
were in place throughout the process, including learning journals,
post-session reflection, sharing across staff and CPD.
To support teachers’ learning, we developed two kinds
of peer networks:
Communities of learning: A regional approach to CPD and
support, promoting local cultural venues, borough sharings
and peer clusters. Networks of teachers met half-termly
at regional gatherings where shared challenges, ideas
and new collaborations could be explored.
Communities of practice: Whole programme cohort CPD
sessions to nurture a community of practice between teachers
and creative practitioners, underpinned by shared learning.
This helped to break down preconceptions, generate new
knowledge and create a greater sense of a communal
approach to school development.
How a Creative Catalyst ethos
supports schools
MCS Programme
Researcher Sarah B Davies
Chapter 1 – The Narrative of My Creative School
09
Can a Creative Catalyst ethos support you?
Examples of SDP priorities MCS supported:
Improving engagement in reading and writing.
Increasing vocabulary.
Developing independent learning.
We found that through employing the arts as a teaching tool,
teachers could identify shifts in knowledge and understanding
demonstrated, often gaining a new insight into the abilities/
capabilities and understanding of their pupils.
Creative Catalyst projects do not require a large budget to get
started. You can do a lot with the resources you currently have
(making inventive use of any supplies at hand).
The key point is that you already have your SDP; a Creative
Catalyst ethos simply proposes a new way of working towards
achieving your priorities, with the added potential to develop
new skills in your staff and pupils along the way.
To help, we have created tools to support you in designing
a Creative Catalyst project to fit your school’s needs and SDP.
You’ll find:
A framework to kick off your own Creative Catalyst project,
from principles to practice
A set of example project plans and case studies from
MCS schools.
Could an arts-led approach to your school development priorities
help achieve the change your school needs?
For me it was the point where we realised
vocabulary was actually very good.
We wouldn’t have come to that realisation.
This allowed us to change our focus to creative
writing, for children to use that vocabulary…

Adaptive Practice: Creating the conditions
for new approaches to grow
During the MCS programme, a type of practice evolved to
support the risk taking nature of the Creative Catalyst projects:
Adaptive Practice.
Comprised of three ideas – reflection, adaptation, and
translation – Adaptive Practice forms a cyclical notion of constant
improvement of teaching and learning, catalysed by the arts,
that is at the heart of MCS.
We outline the stages of Adaptive Practice with some ideas
for you to try.
Adaptive Practice: Creating the conditions
for new approaches to grow
Reflection
Reflection can be a highly personal activity, but in the context
of MCS it was also essential that reflection be collaborative,
with teachers and creative practitioners sharing their skills
and knowledge. We used a number of creative approaches
to strengthen co-reflection, such as:
I Like, I Notice, I Wonder – Why not try commenting on what
happened in a session using only these phrases to begin, as in,
‘I wonder what would happen if…’, encouraging honesty and
a non-judgemental atmosphere.
Objects – Try selecting an object that reflects how you felt
after a session. Go with instinct: something might simply appeal
because it’s comforting or uncomfortable, simple or complicated.
Use the objects as you discuss and debrief.
Free writing – Begin with a phrase like, ‘That session felt…’
and write what comes to mind for up to two minutes. Circle
three words/phrases that seem most interesting as a starting
point to unpick what happened in the session and what might
improve the next one.
For more on reflection, see the Creative Lesson Evaluation tool
in our Compendium of Ideas

Adaptation
A constant readiness to adapt plans and delivery to accommodate
change in progress was a feature of MCS and a strength of our
teacher-creative practitioner partnerships.
How might you adapt your setting to fit your vision for your
project? Two key considerations are space and time. These sets
of questions can help guide your adaptation.
Space
How far have you pushed the envelope when it comes
to innovative use of physical space?
If your school has constraints or concerns around using school
spaces differently, can you create an agreement
for how such transformations are to be managed, e.g.,
all spaces to be returned to their original state after X time of
day, or on a given date?
Can you find ways for other teachers and pupils to benefit
from any transformations or novel uses of physical space, thus
potentially increasing buy-in and participation?
What can you do creatively with what’s already in your classroom? What can be moved, removed, repositioned, reconfigured? How can you involve your pupils in this conversation
or even get them to do the reconfiguring as part of an activity?
Time
How much ‘flex’ are you building into your session plans? Could
you create short and long versions of an activity that allow you
to pursue promising areas of pupil interest while still delivering
desired work?
If your project feels too time-constrained, could you create a
‘time map’ of the school day or week and try to identify extra
time ‘spaces’ you might be able to work, whether for planning,
delivery or reflection?
Creativity is like cooking in
a slow cooker, if you take time
to cook things you can get more
interesting flavours.
Pupil
HAVE A GO!
Chapter 1 – The Narrative of My Creative School
12
Translation
The third aspect of Adaptive Practice is translation. A key aim
for MCS was to ensure that learning around creative approaches
can be ‘translated’ into a broader school context, achieving
practical outcomes and longer term impact across the school.
Translational Practice within MCS was about sharing core ways
of working across teachers and creative practitioners. It was
about embedding new learning to inform and support new
creative teaching and learning practices
Strengthening collaborations
We noticed three broad qualities that created the conditions for
strong and effective collaborations and, thus, impactful creative
projects throughout the MCS programme: vulnerability, resilience,
and experimentation.
Vulnerability
At the core of being vulnerable is acknowledging not only that
you might get things wrong, but also that getting things wrong
has an impact. In MCS, acknowledging vulnerability had the effect
of creating greater trust and a greater willingness to take risks.
Several creative practitioners worked well outside their core art
forms, learning new skills as they went along; the same was true
of teachers.
Resilience
An unwillingness to settle for ‘OK’ was a deep point of connection
between teachers and practitioners. Great artists never settle for
OK, and neither do great teachers. If at first you don’t succeed,
try again.
Experimentation
Experimentation requires both vulnerability and resilience
because it so often ends in failure. This can be frustrating and
difficult – particularly in high-pressure modern schools focused
on achieving visible, measurable results.
We believe that Adaptive Practice is a useful framework for
pedagogical development for arts-led school programmes
and partnership working in schools. We have also seen Adaptive
Practice support new creative practices in teaching and learning.
How might Adaptive Practice support teaching and learning
in your school?
Use this page to note down any ideas or inspiration as you make
your way through the My Creative School Learning Resource.
Logbook of ideas
Things I found interesting
Ideas I want to explore
What I will need to be able to do this
One thing I can do today
One thing I would tell a colleague to share what I’ve learned
Chapter 1 – The Narrative of My Creative School
14
Compendium of Ideas
Tips, tools and case studies by
teachers and creative practitioners
Arts-led, schools-focused resources exploring Chapter
new approaches to school development 2
Chapter 2 – Compendium of Ideas 15
Contents
Introduction
Using the arts to explore different
curriculum areas
Develop arts-led approaches to curriculum
challenges using cultural venues.
PIONEER TEACHERS
Channel the power of WOW
in your school.
Design exciting class ideas and experiments
in independent thinking.
PIONEER TEACHERS
A Strange Event: a cross-curricular
immersive mystery
Plan your own immersive, pupil-led mystery
and explore cross-curricular lesson
planning opportunities.
PIONEER TEACHERS, CHILD LEADERS,
IMMERSIVE ADVENTURE
Free-range assemblies: child-led
presentations of learning
and achievement
A new assembly format where children lead.
PIONEER TEACHERS, CHILD LEADERS
The Game of Life: child-led redesign
of British Values
Enable pupils to designa whole-school board game
exploring the values of the school community.
PIONEER TEACHERS, CHILD LEADERS
How to begin a wellbeing
conversation in your school
Create a safe space to discuss issues
and achievements alike together.
PIONEER TEACHERS
Creative Lesson Evaluation:
activities and tips
Plan and deliver effective evaluation
with your pupils.
PIONEER TEACHERS, CHILD LEADERS
Logbook of Ideas
16
17
23
28
34
38
43
47
53
Chapter 2 – Compendium of Ideas 16
In this resource
In this Compendium of Ideas you will find six teacher development
and classroom ideas, contributed by the creative practitioners
and teachers that took part in MCS. In each resource you will
find a step-by-step list of activities and a case study of how these
ideas have supported SDPs.
You will also find a lesson evaluation tool with activities and tips
to reflect on your creative ideas and experiments.
Introduction
Chapter 2 – Compendium of Ideas 17
Use these teacher planning activities to help staff reflect on their
teaching practice and develop their own arts-led approaches
to curriculum challenges.
Visiting cultural venues is beneficial for teachers as well as
for pupils. Exploring the passions and interests of staff during
a visit to a museum or gallery can expand thinking, leading
to the development of new arts-led approaches.
Using the arts to explore different
curriculum areas
1: INSET
Activity 1: INSET warm-up – re-imagining an object
It helps to develop story muscles and is a light-hearted way to begin a staff
meeting about creative learning.
(10 minutes)
Gather ordinary objects together.
Participants sit in a circle and pass one of these objects from
person to person.
Individuals re-imagine the purpose and ‘story’ of the object.
Useful questions to prompt imagination include “Whose is it?”,
“What is it?” and “Where does it come from?”
In this way, a rock becomes an aide to a magician or the
toothpick of a giant. The longer you pass the object around,
the more imaginative and unusual the suggestions become as
participants gain confidence in expressing imaginative thought
and move beyond more obvious ideas.
Tip: Use this storytelling
activity with your pupils
in class time.
By Greg Klerkx
(MCS creative advocate) and
Alex McIntyre
(Creative practitioner)
Chapter 2 – Compendium of Ideas 18
Activity 2: River
This activity explores teachers’ own motivations and challenges using an
alternative, visual method.
(20 minutes)
Individuals:
On a large sheet of paper, using coloured pens, plot the
journey of your teaching practice as though it is a river.
Start with the source – what is your motivation for being
a teacher?
Map the journey of your practice from its source to now. How
has it grown? What other experiences / tributaries have joined
it? Where are the shoals, rapids or bits of dead water where
you feel like you can’t move forward?
Share your drawings in small groups. Use the below questions
to facilitate discussion:
What does your drawing express or reflect about your
experience of teaching and learning?
What values underpin your view of learning? Which key
experiences influence this view?
How do you currently use the arts / creativity in your teaching
and learning?
Which new insights can you identify through your river?
In particular, where are your areas of challenge / risk?
Activity 3: Quadrant
This activity supports teachers to identify a personal challenge
– an alternative method to a strengths and weaknesses exercise.
(20 minutes)
Individuals each draw a quadrant on a sheet of paper. In the
different quarters, map out and answer the following questions:
What do you love about what you do?
What don’t you love?
What do you feel you are good at?
What would you like to do better?
In small groups, discuss the quadrants. What do you notice?
Are there areas of common interest or challenge?
Individuals should each choose one area of interest/challenge
to enhance, improve or change through an arts-led approach.
This will be that teacher’s personal challenge
Activity 4: Problem translation – turning your
personal challenge into an enquiry question
Use this Problem Translator template during the INSET or individually
to explore in detail your chosen challenge within a creative learning
and/or enquiry-led framework.
(60 minutes)
You could introduce a competitive group element to see
which group can generate the most potential solutions
or explorations of a challenge.
Problem Example: Students don’t pay attention during
physics lessons and thus perform poorly
The way physics is presented isn’t engaging us,
so we don’t find it meaningful or valuable
(Potential for multiple responses)
Low engagement, poor performance on tests
How can we find ways to interest students
in physics?
What they’re
really saying
Impact
Question:
your challenge
Approaches Explore movement and interactivity as a way
to convey some key ideas
(Potential for multiple responses)
Cultural venues are receptive
environments for teachers to
explore new ways into their
teaching practice
2: Visiting a cultural venue as a staff group
to expand thinking
Choose a cultural venue such as a museum or art gallery to visit
as a staff group. Cultural visits enable fresh stimulus for ideas and
can help imagine new ways for the arts to impact on curriculum
or teaching and learning challenges.
Individually, explore your chosen cultural venue:
What exhibition, artwork, or physical space are you drawn to?
What do you connect with and what inspires you? Why?
Choose one thing you wish to look at in more detail. Spend
time either drawing or writing about it.
In groups of two to four, share inspirations from the venue,
responding to the following questions each time:
What do you notice about your chosen inspiration? What drew
you to it?
How does your inspiration connect to your teaching?
What learning activities would you like to devise and try as a
result? Think small and experimental: something you could slip
into a lesson to open up a new perspective.
Put your plan for a creative project into action – this may feel
daunting but hold your nerve.
Reflect and process both individually and with a group of staff:
what did you notice about how pupils responded?
As a group, reflect on what you notice about the activity – was
anything surprising? Consider your challenge again, potentially
over coffee or food to create a relaxed atmosphere.
Using your thinking and experiences from your visit today,
what new experimental action can you take to address your
challenge? How will the arts be incorporated? What are you
going to do? How can this be broken into smaller steps?
When will you take these steps?
What or who do you need to help you (resources / SLT /
external input)?
Tip: Tip: Adapt this activity for your pupils during
a visit to a local cultural venue.
Use the creative lesson
evaluation activities later
in this resource as a guide.
3: Implementing and experimenting in class
Putting this idea into practice: Creative Catalyst case study
How can arts-led curriculum approaches help
build the skill and confidence of NQTs
and grow a culture of peer leadership?
Our aim was to build the skills and confidence of newly qualified
teachers (NQTs) in connecting arts-led learning with key school
development priorities around writing. We wanted NQTs to
be able to devise and deliver a whole staff INSET around new
approaches in this area.
Why?
St. William of Perth Roman Catholic Primary School (SWOP)
noted that their children’s progress in writing slowed from
Key Stage 1 to Key Stage 2, particularly compared to reading.
The school believed that much of this challenge was a matter
of engagement: too many pupils were not interested or lacked
confidence in writing.
This project sought to equip NQTs George and Laura with the
ability to create small arts-led interventions and to reflect on
whether these improved writing engagement. By placing George
and Laura at the centre of this ‘up-skilling’ process, the school
hoped to build their confidence within the SWOP teaching team –
positioning them as internal leaders for arts-led learning.
Both writing and art are inherently
visual forms that lend themselves well
to connections for mutual benefit in
teaching and learning
MCS Creative Advocate
Putting this idea into practice: Creative Catalyst case study
How can arts-led curriculum approaches help
What we did…
Session 1: A half-day workshop led by Alex and Greg that
explored George and Laura’s interest in, and experience of,
teaching and learning.
Session 2: A full day at the Turner Contemporary, a gallery
in Margate. We used a series of visual art and discussion
activities to create our own connections between the visual
and the written.
Session 3: George and Laura were tasked with adapting one
of the visit’s activities into a small intervention they would then
try with their class before our next session.
Session 4: George and Laura co-delivered a two-hour
INSET for the other 12 members of the SWOP teaching and
senior leadership team, using ideas from our art-writing
experimentation process. They used recorded sounds, images
and objects as stimuli for writing, and then led brainstorming
sessions about how other teachers could adapt these methods
for the particular writing challenges their pupils were facing.
What we learnt
A personalised training intervention with a clear process and
goals can build confidence in individual teachers and NQTs
that can then cascade to whole teaching teams.
When visiting cultural venues, have clear goals in mind as to
where your exploration will ideally lead. In our case, we knew
we wanted to find new ideas for engaging Foundation
and KS1 pupils with writing and we believed visual art would be
a potentially powerful way to do this.
School leadership must be willing and able to provide cover
and planning time for teachers to engage in deep learning
about their practice.
Chapter 2 – Compendium of Ideas 22
(NQTs) have really moved
forward with their teaching
practice
Deputy Head Teacher
Chapter 2 – Compendium of Ideas 23
This set of activities will help teachers to collaboratively explore
what makes learning “WOW”!
WOW lessons are exciting, engaging and conducive to
independent thinking. WOW lessons originally responded to
a desire for awe and wonder in teaching and learning at St. Joseph’s
Catholic Primary School in Bromley.
They took two forms:
WOW learning experiments: small, engaging experiments
for teaching a lesson of your choice, combining your own
passions with consideration of the needs of specific children.
Wonder Days: an extension of WOW learning experiments,
taking place across a half/whole day of immersive activities.
Channel the power of WOW in your school
1: INSET
Activity 1: Warm-up
This opening activity brings people together in an energising way.
(5 minutes)
Split teachers into pairs.
Standing facing each other, ask them to count up to three,
taking it in turns so the numbers are passed between them,
and repeat as a round until you say stop.
Once they get the hang of this, they can introduce a sound
or physical action for each number (one becomes a hum,
two becomes a clap and so on). This should provoke laughter. By Alex McIntyre
(Creative practitioner)
Tip: This activity can be used
with pupils as a lesson opener
or during circle time.
Activity 2: Defining WOW
(20 minutes)
Invite teachers to explore what WOW means to them.
Individually, recount the story of a WOW learning moment
in your own life, highlighting what was important about it.
(5 minutes)
In pairs or fours, share your examples with each other.
(10 minutes)
Group reflection: what does WOW mean to us as adults/
teachers/children? Is it scary/loud/meaningful/quiet?
(5 minutes
Activity 3: Focusing on your learners and their needs
This is a practical activity to support the visualisation of your pupils
and their needs. You will need modelling clay or playdough.
(15 minutes)
Individuals should create a model of a child in their class using
playdough, making it symbolic rather than realistic to reflect:
(10 minutes)
What is this child like as a learner?
What needs does s/he have?
When does s/he currently demonstrate independent thinking
and learning?
What influences or obstructs this learning?
Return to the group (or split into small groups) and introduce
your playdough children to each other: (5 minutes)
What commonalities / differences do you notice?
What would inspire WOW/awe and wonder in your child
/ these children?
Activity 4: Design a WOW Experiment
(15 minutes)
Design at least one learning experiment by thinking about
what you would love to teach and what you think would inspire
awe and wonder for this child/children. Plan out:
What will you do?
When will you do it?
What materials / support do you need?
Give staff one week following the INSET to think through
and develop their ideas further.
Meet in pairs or year group teams to workshop each person’s
WOW experiment to ensure they are ready to deliver it.
Be curious and suspend judgement to facilitate free discussion.
Ask:
What excites you about this?
What is challenging and how will you address that challenge?
2: Developing your ideas
Go and try out your planned experiments on your classes!
3: Small WOW learning experiments
Tip: Use the lesson evaluation
activities later in this resource
to gauge how your pupils
responded to your WOW
learning experiments.
Following the WOW learning experiments, meet and reflect
in the same pairs or year group teams as before. Use these
questions to help facilitate your conversation:
How did the experiments go?
What happened?
What did you notice?
What were you excited about? Why?
What felt more challenging? Why?
Where would you like to take your thinking next?
How could this become a bigger project?
What opportunities and benefits can you see?
What would help you expand your ideas further?
How could your teachers expand their WOW learning experiments
to embed their learning? Consider the differentiated options below:
Plan a series of linked WOW learning experiments (one per
week) over a specified period of time. Staff deliver and reflect
on any changes they observe. This approach is particularly
useful if you are aiming for long term change to address
a problem.
Plan a full scale Wonder Day – or make them a regular event.
The teachers’ ideas were full of wonder
and highly experimental. Responses
to this challenge were exciting
and varied.

How can awe and wonder
improve learning?
Project partners
Alex McIntyre (Creative practitioner)
Katharine James (Creative practitioner)
Jane Burr (Class teacher)
Sharon Grange (Head Teacher)
All teaching staff
The Big Idea
Through a creative exploration with all teaching staff,
we experimented with ways of incorporating and evaluating
the impact of WOW moments in learning.
Why?
St Joseph’s Primary School’s most recent Ofsted report highlighted
a need to develop children as independent thinkers and learners.
Teachers observed a lack of engagement, focus and child-led
learning across the school. The school decided that the ambition
was to put the WOW back into learning for children – to capture
attention, inspiration and imagination using the arts in non-arts
curriculum subjects.
Chapter 2 – Compendium of Ideas 26
What we did…
As a starting point, Alex facilitated a conversation with school
leadership to identify a list of characteristics of independent
learners. These became success indicators for the project:
Curious and intrinsically interested in learning
Excited about learning
Able to listen
Responsive and attentive
Engaged
Active, responsible learners
Present
Able to use vibrant language and ask questions
We felt that in order for these characteristics to occur, a child
needed to experience a sense of awe and wonder. This led us
to explore the questions:
What is awe and wonder?
Is the experience the same for everyone?
How can we create the conditions for another person
to experience this?
After an initial INSET session and two “Wonder Labs” to develop
staff ideas, teachers delivered their own WOW learning
experiments in class. They used feedback from these to run
longer Wonder Days.

Wonder Days were ambitious class activities which were coplanned and co-delivered with the help and skills of a creative
practitioner to develop and extend the learning of the WOW
learning experiment. This led to exciting and engaging lessons
across the curriculum, e.g.:
Year 6 pupils experienced what it was like to work in the mines
during the Victorian era in their history lesson. They pulled
heavy loads on gym mat ‘trucks’ across the hall, crawled
through a dark tunnel in one of the corridors (made from
black bin liners) and crouched in boxes to get the sense
of limited space and darkness.
A Year 4 teacher led a WOW lesson to demonstrate a chemical
reaction in digestion through a dramatic chemistry experiment.
The experiment was filmed and showed audible gasps and
amazed expressions across the whole class. The children went
on to develop their own movements and actions for different
chemical elements and created a rap song together.
What we learnt
The teacher was very much the lead, with the creative practitioner
providing encouragement for the teacher in stretching his/her
own practice. This created a developmental opportunity
for teachers, increasing the potential for ideas and skills to be
practised and embedded.
The words awe, wonder and WOW set emotional and social
expectations that an activity is going to be amazing. Some
activities didn’t work as well, which is a normal part of trying
something new. When taking any risk, small failures along
the way are a useful and important learning process.
The highlight of the whole project was seeing the energy and
enthusiasm of the teachers for their WOW learning experiments
and Wonder Days. They finished the project keen to take their
learning forwards and with the skills to do so.

The whole class’s attitude to learning
is beginning to shift towards being
more free thinking and questioning
across the curriculum.

A Strange Event: a cross-curricular
immersive mystery

An immersive mystery can:
Provide a participatory cross-curricular learning experience.
Offer a space for children to lead their own learning and
develop communication, collaboration, critical thinking and
analytical skills.
Be a platform for staff collaboration and experimentation.
Create a buzz of excitement and curiosity within the wider
school community.
Use this tool to think through your own immersive mystery.
We’ve outlined a week-long mystery but you can adapt this
to suit your setting/needs.
A Strange Event: a cross-curricular
immersive mystery
Talk to the Head Teacher / SLT: You’ll need their buy-in.
Establish a core team: We recommend three: a project
manager (in charge of the schedule, deadlines and logistics);
a lesson-planning facilitator (present at lesson-planning
sessions to maintain clarity, share great ideas and be the
go-to person for concerns / issues); a senior leader.
Work out your lead time: We recommend six weeks as a
sensible timeframe in which to generate an event idea,
introduce it to staff, organise it and plan a lesson framework.
Put it in the diary: Ideally you’ll explore all areas of the
curriculum through the lens of the project – this might mean
you come off-timetable for up to a week depending on your
ambitions. When could this fit into the school calendar?
Might it be a way to open or close a term?
Define your guiding principles: Agree on some key words
/ phrases that communicate how you want people to feel
and how you want staff and pupils to participate.
Here are a few examples:
AMAZING: a theatrical, physical stimulus that will grip
imaginations and provide the foundation for a whole week

of work.
PLAUSIBLE: an event that could happen – something that
Y6 children could believe

COLLABORATIVE: staff take ownership and have the
space to experiment, take risks, and play.
EMPOWERING: children are empowered to guide the
week’s learning with their questions and ideas.
OPEN-ENDED: a project with an emphasis on investigating
rather than solving, recognising that evidence can point in
many directions.
COMMUNAL: the whole school is involved as a community
1. Generating ideas for your Strange Event

Brainstorm ideas with your core team, a wider staff group, or
through a suggestions box in the staff room. Use the following
questions as a starting point:
Has something landed on the roof / in the school grounds?
Has something appeared in a classroom? Has something
mysteriously disappeared?
What is it?

2. Developing your idea
Once you’ve got a strong idea for your Strange Event you need
to hone it to make sure it’s clear, simple and possible. The
following questions might help:
Does it excite, inspire you and fire your imagination?
Does it speak to the project aims and guiding principles?
Is it plausible? Will the children buy into it?

Is it safe?
Is there any cost involved? If so, how much and do we have
the budget?
Once you’re clear on your idea, work out:
When will people encounter the event and who will discover it?
Are going to transform any areas of the school? If so how,
when, and who can help?
What do you need the staff to do and when?
Finally, write your idea into a short, exciting pitch. Create
a backstory as a “jumping off point” – it should offer avenues
for pupils to explore, not just a linear path to one solution.

3. Engaging the staff – the introductory
briefing session

Invite all staff (including teaching assistants / cover staff /
anyone who might be involved) to a meeting to introduce
your Strange Event idea. Explain:
What will happen and how? (Pitch and backstory)
The purpose of the project for pupils and staff.
The timeframe.
Responsibilities: What will they need to do – do they have
to make things? Who will they need to work with? When are
the deadlines they will need to meet?
How the core team will support them.
Swear them to secrecy – this is vital!

4. Lesson sketching: planning a flexible
framework for child-led learning

We recommend planning lessons in small teams – two yeargroups together for example. These should be facilitated by the
assigned member of the core team who will need to:
Outline any expectations / specific tasks that all classes
should complete. We recommend dedicating a lesson early
on – if not the first – for the staff and pupils to create an
evidence board or space in their classroom which is added
to throughout the week.
Encourage staff to share their concerns / excitement.
Share any ‘gem’ ideas generated by the other teams.
During this one-hour planning session you should:
1. Recap the shape of the week. Get the teachers to note any
key moments on a blank timetable. (5 mins)
2. All together: discuss all the exciting things you could teach
off the back of the Strange Event (have a few prepared in
case it’s a slow start). Keep the discussion moving – the point
is to get as much information as possible. (10 mins)
3. Brainstorm 15-20 lesson headings across all areas of the
curriculum that could stem from the Strange Event. (5 mins)
4. Take three each and expand them into three bullet-point
plans. Share them verbally. (10 mins)

5. Swap plans. Everyone adds two additional points to each of
their colleague’s three plans. (5 mins)
6. Take six of the expanded plans and write the headers onto
your blank timetables. Take a different colour and switch the
order. (5 mins)
7. Open discussion – have we got enough material? Are we
covering the curriculum? Do we need more ideas? (5 mins)
8. Think about the momentum of the week – when would it be
good to find clues to help the mystery, how do you want this
to happen? Does the caretaker come in with a bag ‘found’ on
the roof? Does someone find a key in a flower bed? (5 mins)
9. Discussion: how is everyone feeling now and what else do
they need to do to feel confident before the week starts? (5 mins)

When someone stops in their tracks,
it changes their normal way of
going about their day… the children
and the adults were really excited.
They needed to know what had
happened. They were launching
into their own enquiries, both adults
and children were very engaged.

5. Preparing for the Strange Event

In the run-up to the event, hold short weekly meetings to ensure
everyone is on track. All teachers involved need to be on the
same page and need to feel confident that they can improvise
in response to pupils’ ideas. Remember not to let pupils know
something is afoot.

6. Reflecting on the Strange Event

1. Build in time for staff personal reflection. We recommend short
written surveys before and immediately after the project week.
Before: How are staff feeling and why? What do they think
the challenges will be? What are they most excited about?
What they are nervous about?
After: How do they feel now and why? What were the most
exciting/challenging moments in the week and why? What
did they learn from the project? Did any of their pupils
surprise them – how? How did the project address the key
aims? What would they change?
2. Hold an open discussion session in the week after the event
to reflect on the value of the project and its impact on the
children / parents / you. Close this discussion with everyone
making some commitment that will move towards embedding
the project learning.
3. Final evaluation: With the core team, review the surveys /
themes identified in the discussion and isolate two or three
learnings that you want to commit to embedding. Then work
out how you’re going to do this: who will help? What’s the
timeframe? What does success look like?

4. Pupil reflection: You might find it valuable to reflect on the
event with your classes. Be careful though, you don’t want the
children to realise it was all a hoax.

Tip: You might find the creative lesson
evaluation activities listed later
in this resource helpful.

Adaptation

Developing the idea: Can you plan an immersive, crosscurricular week every year? Every term? Can you involve
parents, invite local schools? Create press interest?
Scaling the idea down: How can an immersive mystery
be planned for one day / one year group / one class?
Bite-sizing the idea: Consider how an immersive mystery
can take over one lesson. How can you create a mystery
out of a locked cupboard / a strange shell that has appeared
on the teacher’s desk one morning?
Adapting the idea: Could an immersive mystery / stimulus
event help launch new topics?

Putting this idea into practice: Creative Catalyst case study
How can a whole-school mystery
help boost pupil engagement
and build cross-curricular links?

The Big Idea

To develop a project that could collapse traditional subject
boundaries and provide opportunities for pupils to write across
the whole curriculum. We wanted to create a physical, theatrical
project that would capture the imaginations of the whole
school community; that would open the space for staff to work
collaboratively and that would allow children to take responsibility
for their learning.

Why?

Staff at Malden Parochial had noticed a trend: pupils were writing
to different standards for different subjects. Someone might be
a brilliant writer in English lessons, an average writer in history
and a poor writer when it came to science.

I’ve learnt the importance of trusting
children with their learning; stimulus
inspired learning is the best

We discussed the fundamentals of writing and agreed that at
heart, writing – whether it’s creative or factual or personal –
communicates story. Maybe pupils needed a space to find the
story in whatever they were writing, irrespective of the subject

What we did…

1. We came up with a clear, exciting idea…
“On Monday 5th February, pupils arrive at school to find three
fantastical flying machines crash-landed across the grounds.
WHY are they there? WHERE did they come from? WHO flew
them? It’s all a bit of a mystery…”
We also created the following backstory:
“Three amateur flying machine enthusiasts have taken part in a crazy
Wacky Races-style flying contest. They ran into weather trouble and
were forced to crash land in the school grounds. They have scarpered, unharmed, leaving behind their flying machines and a series
of clues which are discovered over the course of the week…

2. We facilitated a project design workshop with
the whole school staff
We split the staff up to work in their three ‘phase’ teams
(i.e. years 1 & 2). Each team would take responsibility for designing
a flying machine. The teams had 45 minutes to decide:
Who was their pilot? Their name / where they were from /
their passion or occupation
What machine had they flown? What did staff have at home/in
supply cupboards that could make a plausible flying machine?
What clues have they left behind? What could their pilot have
dropped on the premises that would point to their identity?
The teams then had three weeks to assemble their flying
machines and source clues. They used items they already
had in their store cupboards and the results were fantastic –
and believable!
3. We facilitated a session to create a flexible lesson
framework
Teachers collaborated in their phase teams to:
Sketch out a loose list of cross-curricular lesson ideas based
on the machines and clues that would be found. The children
would be leading the investigation and the teachers would
need to be able to respond flexibly to whatever direction they
wanted to take.
Decide when they might need clues to be ‘discovered’ in order to
maintain momentum, deepen the investigation, or re-energise it.
4. We established a closing frame
The only task that we asked all the classes to do was to write a letter
to one of the pilots at the end of the week. All the letters would
be gathered up into one envelope ready to post before half term.
5. We set the structure of the week
1. Monday: an ‘emergency assembly’ was held to brief the whole
school that although the site has been checked and everything
is safe, no-one knows what has happened – so let’s investigate!
2. Wednesday: a ‘journalist’ came in to interview all classes.
3. Thursday PM: a pilot came in to give a talk.
4. Friday PM: parents were invited to look around
the classrooms at the work created by the pupils.
The result was a week-long mystery that captured the imaginations
of pupils, parents and staff alike. Children led their own way
through the curriculum areas guided by their interests and clues.
Written work thrived across these different curriculum areas,
inspired by the mystery.
What we learnt
With strong, willing collaborative work, it’s possible to create
amazing learning experiences that don’t cost the earth or involve
a lot of planning. The important thing is to create a process and
a project structure in which everyone is invested and responsible
for making it work.

This has been the best week
of my life!
Pupil

Free-range assemblies: child-led
presentations of learning and achievement

A free-range assembly is an interactive event developed and led
entirely by pupils, where visitors roam the “market stall” setup
and get a taste of the work pupils want to share with other years,
parents and teachers. This type of event offers a new invitation
for parents to connect with their children’s learning.

Your free-range assembly could include:

Pupils demonstrating their learning through timed performances.
Participatory activities that challenge parents to do the same
learning activities as their children, but in bite-sized ways –
enabling parents to understand what and how pupils learn.

Ingredients for a successful free-range assembly

. Pupil voice: pupils steer the development of stalls and activities
for stall visitors, developing their own communication
and collaboration skills.
2. Ensure every pupil has a role: this will mean that the free- range
assembly format reflects all ranges of learners/types of student.
3. Parent participation: parents are not simply an audience,
but actively participate in class project ideas for themselves

4. Step back, let go and allow children to direct the learning.
5. Allow children to choose their working partners.
6. Senior leadership support and encourage staff and pupils.
7. A quick and easy system for self-evaluation.

Tip: Why not seek inspiration from
the lesson evaluation activities
listed later in this resource?

Reflecting on your event

Hold one or more staff meetings / INSETs to answer the
following questions:
What would feel like an exciting yet manageable risk to take
in your event? What could connect teachers, pupils and parents
in a powerful new way?
How can participatory activities underscore key messages you’d
like parents to receive about their child’s learning and school
experience?
How will you gather and make best use of feedback, both from
children and parents?
Who else might you invite, e.g., governors, councillors, others
with a key stake in your school? Can the invitation itself be
participatory and engaging?
How can you ensure every student has a meaningful role in
assemblies, whether it be presenting, welcoming, or capturing
feedback from your visitors?
How will you embed this into your assembly schedule?
Could parts of selected lessons be dedicated to adding to and
building up small scale displays for an eventual market stall event?
Could the focus be either about a book, a topic, or about
a curriculum area such as a concept in maths?
Can the free-range assembly help teachers to assess their
pupils’ learning?

They [the teachers] also
learnt that they too are
creative even when they
think they are not.
Head Teacher

Putting this idea into practice: Creative Catalyst case study
How can an alternative assembly
approach give children greater
decision-making opportunities?

St Peter and St Paul Catholic Primary Academy – Bromley

Project partners
Lucy Thornton (Creative practitioner)
Dan Stringer (Year 4 Class teacher)
Erika Mint (Year 3 Class teacher)
Joanna Seymour (Head Teacher)
The pupils of Willow and Birch classes

Parents’ perspectives of what happens
in schools has improved, and their
willingness to engage is much greater,
and they have a more positive outlook
on what we do.

The Big Idea
To use the idea of ‘free-range assemblies’ to put children in
the lead and boost levels of parental engagement. To explore
the potential connection between parental engagement and
improved attendance.
Why?
The school wanted to improve vocabulary and problem-solving
skills and to share pupils’ learning around vocabulary with parents
and the rest of the school.
What we did…
In classes
Year 3 and 4 children developed team building, vocabulary and
problem-solving skills through ten weeks of separate arts-based
tasks, using sound as stimulus. This was linked to the classes’
individual curriculum topics using the creative techniques taught
to us by Lucy and the MCS team.

Central project: tree sculpture

Lucy, the teachers and the pupils jointly developed a vision
to build a large sculptural tree, which would host their new
vocabulary and learning within the bark, branches and leaves.

Parental engagement
Parent engagement wasn’t limited to the assembly. For example,
one day at home time parents were met in the playground by
their children and asked to take home a leaf, write a word on it
and share this word the next day with the class.
An outline of the free-range assembly
One day before: Children set up their stalls showcasing ten
weeks’ worth of MCS class activities and finished the large
‘vocabulary tree’ sculpture.
9.00am on the day of the assembly: Parents were greeted at
the school gate by Lucy and a group of pupils reciting a chant
they had created as part of a music-led MCS activity. Pupils led
parents to the hall.
Inside the hall was the finished vocabulary tree sculpture, surrounded
by ten stalls setting out different themed pieces of writing and
images with different activities parents could try themselves. Each
stall was attended by around five pupils who introduced their work
and explained the activity the visitors could try. Every pupil had a role.
Activities for parents included:
Make your own hieroglyphic codes
Add a word to the vocabulary tree
Make a ‘virtuous vocabulary’ sentence using set words
Write scripts for shadow puppetry
Make your own poem using the forest sounds as inspiration.
Suddenly, the pupils left their stalls to form a circle around the
vocabulary tree and collectively performed a forest soundscape
using their own voices and bodies. A select number of pupils
stepped forward to read poems they had written about forests.
They repeated this at regular intervals.
The parents were free to stay as long as they wished. Other
classes were invited to visit. The event lasted all morning
and was repeated again after school for those parents who
didn’t manage to see it in the morning.
What we learnt
The development of the free-range assembly was at first daunting,
as both teachers and children had to let go of the norm and free
themselves from a perceived convention of what an assembly
should look like. Once the children discovered that they were
going to share their learning in a participatory way, which they
found very stimulating, the idea of presenting in a different style
held no fears for them. Teachers took a longer time to realise the
whole vision as they had to address the issues of how to manage
the assembly, the health and safety of all taking part and have the
courage of their convictions that it really was going to work.
Once called to the hall, the free-range assembly allowed the
children to speak to parents about their learning, to question
parents’ own knowledge and show off their expertise. It meant
that parents could witness first-hand the things teachers see daily
such as collaborative working, listening, questioning of each other
and waiting for each to express their opinion. As the parental
feedback demonstrated, this came as a revelation to many.
Chapter 2 – Compendium of Ideas 37

It’s just brilliant, I love being able
to hear my child speak like this.

Malden Parochial Church of England Primary School – Kingston

Project partners
Katharine James (Creative practitioner)
Felicity Coyne (Class teacher)
Fiona McConville (SLT)
The staff of Malden Parochial C of E Primary School

The Game of Life: child-led redesign
of British Values
Identify a class or group to become ‘Game Creators’. We suggest
Year 3 pupils, but the activities can be adapted according to the
age and ability of any age group.
Stage 1: Children develop a set of common Life Values
(45 minutes)
1. Roll out a big sheet of paper. In pairs, ask the children to lie
down on the paper and draw an outline around each other.
2. Ask children, what is important to them? What are they
passionate about? Write/draw these personal values in the
body area.
3. Ask children, what life skills do they need to achieve their hobbies
and interests? Write/draw these life skills in the head area.
4. Looking at these life skills, think about the school environment:
what skills do the children need to be able to work at their
best and what skills are needed for a safe, successful school
community? Circle those skills.
5. Ask each child to choose one life skill they think is most
important and write it on a post-it note. Sit in a circle. Play
snap. If one child has the same as another, they move to sit
next to each other. Go around the circle sharing why the
children chose those skills.
After the lesson, bring together all of the skills that came up more
than once – these are the collective Life Values, unique to the class.
British Values can often feel difficult to teach or understand.
Bringing these abstract concepts to life and making them
relevant to pupils is key, and the Game of Life offers the
opportunity to do so through ‘creative challenges’.
British Values can be rearticulated by children to form a common
set of ‘Life Values’, unique to the school: values that pupils feel
are important to create a safe community. The Game of Life
is a creative, child-led way of teaching these values.

Identify a class or group to become ‘Game Creators’. We suggest
Year 3 pupils, but the activities can be adapted according to the
age and ability of any age group.

Stage 1: Children develop a set of common Life Values
(45 minutes)
1. Roll out a big sheet of paper. In pairs, ask the children to lie
down on the paper and draw an outline around each other.
2. Ask children, what is important to them? What are they
passionate about? Write/draw these personal values in the
body area.
3. Ask children, what life skills do they need to achieve their hobbies
and interests? Write/draw these life skills in the head area.
4. Looking at these life skills, think about the school environment:
what skills do the children need to be able to work at their
best and what skills are needed for a safe, successful school
community? Circle those skills.
5. Ask each child to choose one life skill they think is most
important and write it on a post-it note. Sit in a circle. Play
snap. If one child has the same as another, they move to sit
next to each other. Go around the circle sharing why the
children chose those skills.
After the lesson, bring together all of the skills that came up more
than once – these are the collective Life Values, unique to the class.

Stage 2: Children co-design creative challenges based
on each Life Value
(45-60 minutes per value)
The Game of Life is played by exploring and demonstrating
these values through arts-based ‘creative challenges’, which
classes across the school complete.
Over the course of a lesson, take the Game Creators through
these steps to create a set of five creative challenges for every
Life Value:
1. Set the class the creative goal: to develop a set of exciting,
creative challenges to explore the Life Values for other pupils
across the school.
2. Demonstrate: have the pupils explore a number of creative
challenges set by you, e.g. play human bingo, create a group
‘freeze-frame’, drawing, short poem, sculpture, music etc.
3. Co-create: in small groups the children can now develop some
ideas of their own for creative challenges together.
Start by asking the children to think about different
challenge outcomes, for example getting people to write
a poem, draw, perform, build etc.
Take one Life Value at a time and explore how to creatively
represent it. For example, what might ‘kindness’ sound like?
As a group, choose a favourite challenge from the
suggestions.
4. Groups pitch this challenge idea to the rest of the class.
5. As a class, decide upon the final five challenges per Life Value.
6. Design a Creative Challenge card for the board game.
7. Move on until each Life Value has its own Creative Challenge
card of five challenges.

Game of Life
Creative Challenge card
Teamwork
• Build the tallest tower using
anything in the room.
• Make music using your bodies.
A whole group 2 minute
performance.
• Choose a colour that
represents teamwork.
Draw a picture of teamwork
in that colour.
• Make a whole group bridge
using just your bodies.

Stage 3: Children design a board game and space to
share challenge outcomes
1. Design the board to track the progress of the game. You
will need the same number of squares as the number of Life
Values, plus a finishing point. Make it big and colourful.
2. Design a shared space for the challenge outcomes (artworks,
poems etc) to be displayed.
3. Create counters for classes to move across the board.
4. Think of a prize for the winning class.

Game of Life
Creative Challenge card
Teamwork
• Build the tallest tower using
anything in the room.
• Make music using your bodies.
A whole group 2 minute
performance.
• Choose a colour that
represents teamwork.
Draw a picture of teamwork
in that colour.
• Make a whole group bridge
using just your bodies.

Stage 4: Children launch the game across the
whole school
1. Find a fun and creative way to invite the rest of the school
to play. For example, put the invites in golden envelopes
or have children dress up to deliver them.
2. Gather the school and launch the game, e.g. at a whole
school assembly. The Game Creators could open the event
with a performance.
Stage 5: Play the Game of Life as a school
We suggest allocating one week for each class across the school to
explore one Life Value. Therefore, if you have eight values,
you will need eight weeks left in the term to complete the game.
The activity could be set as a 10 minute activity on a Monday
morning, in circle/ golden time, or as homework.
1. Issue the week’s Life Value challenges in an exciting way.
Classes pick a challenge from the list of five options and place
their creative outcomes (drawings, photos etc) into the shared
display space for all to see.
2. Classes move their class counter forward on the board game
as they complete their weekly challenge.
3. Each week, ask teachers to choose a ‘Creative Champion’
– a pupil who has demonstrated the Life Value for that
week, e.g. Kindness – and award them with a rosette and/or
certificate. You could celebrate in assembly and newsletter.
4. Encourage the children to talk with each other about the
challenges, the values, opinions and beliefs.
5. Pick an overall winning class and celebrate their creations
in an assembly.

Reflect with your class on the activities – how are these Values
related to British Values? How was the process of letting children
create their own Life Values?
Tip: Why not seek inspiration from
the creative lesson evaluation
activities listed later in this
resource?
Adaptation
Scaling this idea down: Can the Game of Life be developed
and played in one class/one year group only?
Scaling this idea up: Can other classes across the school
develop their own Life Values to keep the game going?
Scaling the idea up even more: Can the Game of Life be
played with another local school, or school/s in your multiacademy trust, alliance or umbrella trust?
Adopting and adapting the framework: The Game of Life
framework hinges on setting the goal; demonstrating;
co-creating. It supports child-led exploration and development
of ideas. Can you adapt this framework and apply this
to other projects or lessons?

Putting this idea into practice: Creative Catalyst case study
How can child-led creative exploration
make British Values meaningful?

Project partners
Simon Batchelor (Creative practitioner)
Pauline Newton (Year 3 Class teacher)
The pupils of St Bridget’s class

The project has provided a chance for
me to share… what I truly believe in,
the way education should truly be;
letting the children lead and putting
creativity at the heart of learning.

The Big Idea
To support the teaching of British Values across the whole school
through child-led exploration.
Why?
British Values make a lot of us feel uncomfortable, but why?
Defined as ‘democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, respect
and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs’, are these values
unique to Britain – or are they universal?
This was our starting point at Regina Coeli Catholic Primary
School: to take the ‘Human Values’ concept and explore how
to create a safe and successful community in an exciting way.
What we did…
Discovering what they value
To begin with, the children generated nine common Life Values,
all of which the children believed were necessary in order
to become a safe and successful community:
Respect
Knowledge
Kindness
Empathy
Helpfulness
Teamwork
Friendship
Patience
Listening

A session framework for pupil-led exploration
We developed a session framework that would support our Year 3
‘Game Creators’ to work together to develop these activities
entirely themselves.
Every session began with the Game Creators sharing thoughts
and experiences about the week’s chosen Life Value. This value
was then brought to life, with the children being given time to
visually represent the word through physical movement and
‘freeze frames’ in small groups. Following this, the whole class
completed an example creative challenge which we set them.
This gave them a chance to see different exciting outcomes to
challenges – a poem, story, sculpture, physical act, sound etc.
Back in their groups, the Game Creators then put on their
thinking hats and began designing new and exciting challenges
of their own for this Life Value. Each group could come up with
a few ideas but then had to agree amongst themselves a final
idea to pitch to the rest of the class. The class eventually
agreed on five ideas to become the creative challenges for
that Life Value.

Their use of ‘value-based’ language demonstrates
their sense of ownership. Respect, Friendship,
Kindness, Helpfulness, Listening, Empathy,
Knowledge and Teamwork are bandied around
the room, permeating the conversation.
Class teacher

The children also created an enormous board game and display
space so that, once the game was officially launched across the
school, classes could collectively exhibit their creative responses
to chosen challenges.
What we learnt
Collaboration between teachers and practitioners can be difficult
at times due to differing approaches and boundaries, but if a good
relationship can be formed where there is trust and listening, this
allows everyone to take risks. The job of the creative practitioner
is to work with the teacher to try new ways of working with
students. This can be as simple as ‘let’s push the tables and chairs
back’, or ‘let’s get the children to lead and create the challenges
with no input from us’, and ultimately ‘let’s see what happens!’

How to begin a wellbeing conversation
in your school

Use these tips and arts-led ideas amongst your whole staff
team, to help you create a safe space to discuss issues
and achievements alike together.
How to begin a wellbeing conversation
in your school
Like exercise, looking after personal and community wellbeing
is an ongoing practice. Longer term rewards may include: more
emotionally aware staff; adults who take a solution-oriented
approach to problems; improved communication; and better
functioning teams.
Make time to reflect on current staff experiences and be sure
to listen to each other actively and without judgement, thereby
creating a safe environment for discussion.
Expect some resistance and have courage.
Embark on your journey with team mates and a support
system in place.
You might like to agree some codes of behaviour together
e.g.:
1. To listen
2. Be kind
3. Be open and honest

Two activities to try in your staff meeting:

Postcard chats:
This activity helps stimulate a conversation through visual aids.
(10 minutes)
1. Lay out postcards / images
2. Each staff member chooses an image that represents their day
3. Have a conversation with someone you haven’t connected
with in a while (sharing in pairs):
Why did you choose the image?
What were your best moments today?
What about challenging moments?
What one thing do you want to remember?
Reflect as a group – what was useful about the activity?
What do you notice?

You can use this activity in your
class as a warm up or themed
discussion prompts around
a curriculum area or topic.

Wellbeing Collage:
This is a practical, creative exercise to stimulate conversation through the
process of making and collaborating.
(30 minutes)
Lay out a large sheet of paper, glue sticks and scissors. Together
create a collage.
You might like to explore, discuss and respond to the questions
below at the same time:
What does wellbeing mean to us?
When do we experience it?
What stops or damages a sense of wellbeing?
Whose responsibility is this?
What do we do currently to look after our wellbeing (personal
and community)?
What else could we do?
How would we like to take our thinking forward?

Reflect as a group
What was useful about these activities? What do you notice?

The teachers we worked
with were amazing. [Their]
generosity and sense of
personal responsibility,
combined with a moral
compass and dedication
to building a better world
through teaching and
education, is extraordinary.
They have inspiring ideas
and hold the potential
to fulfil them.
Creative practitioner

Putting this idea into practice: Creative Catalyst case study
How can creative activities for all school
staff open up opportunities to discuss
personal wellbeing?

Project partners
Abigail Hunt (Creative practitioner)
Alex McIntyre (Creative practitioner)
Maggie Delwiche (Class teacher)
Claire Bracher (SLT)
The staff community
The Big Idea
This Creative Catalyst project focused on the needs of the adults
in school rather than the children. Our aim in this project was to
find ways for adults to discuss, understand, take responsibility for,
and improve, their own wellbeing – both individually and collectively

Why?
Nationwide media coverage talks of teacher stress, increasing
pressure and burnout. Many schools also speak of the challenges
of changing staff teams and staff retention. These issues are by
their very nature difficult for staff to acknowledge and discuss.
The project ambition was therefore to begin to shift school culture
and to find ways for the school community to support each other
– to do ‘things’ differently.

What we did…
The project had two strands:
1. Space 2: A place for adults working in the school to visit in spare
moments. Visual artist Abigail created artworks within the space
and invited staff to respond. Staff could collaboratively add
to the art, allowing it to grow gradually. This hands-on activity
helped people connect to the space – staff were focussed on
something away from stresses of school, if only briefly.
2 Artist and coach Alex offered confidential 1-to-1 and group
sessions with selected members of staff. Using drawing and
coaching techniques she facilitated a listening space, which
was directly responsive to the needs of the individual/s. Each
participant set a goal for the session and was primarily responsible for its content, outcomes and subsequent actions.

What we learnt
Our key role as creative practitioners was to provide support
for the teachers. They will continue to address the issue of adult
wellbeing in school– our role was to create an environment
for them to begin the journey.
A strong collaborative partnership is based on mutual trust and
the ability to articulate, share and challenge each other safely.
Everyone brought different skills and perspectives, creating rich
opportunities for the exchange of ideas. Early project planning
conversations meant the four-person team formed a strong
partnership through which we were able to articulate thinking
and challenge each other.
The project was a positive reminder of the importance of the
process of creativity, and the value of immersing yourself
in materials and making.

The key to this project was us
acting as support for the teachers.
They are climbing a mountain,
and for a short time we offered to
carry bags, give water – offering
permission and encouragement as
they marched upwards.

Creative Lesson Evaluation: activities and tips

This document is a tool for class reflection. It outlines a sample
of evaluation activities and ideas developed by some of our MCS
teachers and practitioners to capture the opinion of the pupils
at the end of a project session, lesson or workshop.
Things to think about when setting up an evaluation
activity:
Have a clear understanding of what you want to evaluate and
why. We used these questions: what new things did you learn?
How hard did you find today’s workshop/project? Did you find
a way of solving the challenge? How well did you work together?
What was your favourite part of the workshop/project? What
would you do differently next time?
How long can you allocate to evaluating your lesson?
Our teachers reserved the last ten minutes at the end
of each project session for evaluation.
Who will be leading the evaluation activity and who will
be recording and observing?
Make sure you understand what you need to know and the
best way to achieve this. Choose your evaluation approaches
that work best for you and will best achieve insight for the
questions you need answers to.
Make sure you have all the materials you need prepared
and ready for each session.
Think about how the activity leads into the session reflection
– how the evaluation activity flows on from what you have
been exploring. Which activity works best if your session has
focused on drama? Which one would be most effective if you
have been working outdoors?

Tip: These activities can also be
adapted for teacher INSET
and CPD sessions.

Activity idea
Activity idea
Good because…
Good because…
Adaptation
Adaptation
Be aware…
Be aware…
Use a microphone (pretend
or real) and ask the pupils
questions in the manner of
a TV interview. Could be
recorded or just pretend.
Create a tree on a display
board. Pupils add a leaf
detailing what they think
they have learnt.
It can be used to address most
evaluation questions.
Fun.
Gets pupils used to speaking out.
Encourages quick thinking: you have
to say what you think straight away.
A powerful documentation
tool if recorded.
Creates a visual record that
documents progress as an
additional element of the
evaluation. Something the
class can watch develop.
A more kinetic version of
written feedback.
Quieter ones may not be
so keen.
Requires someone to
make notes to document
pupil responses, if not
being recorded.
If facilitated, it requires dedicated time for pupils to
write down their learning and pin it up.
If not facilitated, it will require constant prompts
and reminders.
You need to document any new additions to the
tree in the context of your project plan.
If the session you are evaluating was very active,
sitting down to write a reflection can be inhibiting
for some.
Place the pupils in the role of roving
reporters who are interviewing fellow
pupils.
Support pupils to develop interview
questions that address the evaluation
and probe further to understand the
responses.
Discuss the value of open-ended and
closed interview questions.
What they write
on their leaf could
respond to a range
of other questions.
It could be adjusted
depending on what
you want to track.

Anyone who…
(also known as fruit salad)

Activity idea Good because… Be aware… Adaptation
Get the group to sit in a circle. Facilitator sits in
the middle and makes a statement that starts
with ‘Anyone who…’, e.g., ‘anyone who ate
breakfast this morning’ or ‘anyone who has a pet.’
Everyone who the statement applies to has to get
out of their seat and find a new seat. Participants
are not allowed to move to the chairs next to
them or back into their own chair. The exercise
gradually moves towards statements relevant
to the project, e.g., ‘Anyone who has learned
something interesting today’. Facilitator can also
‘freeze’ the exercise, holding people mid-move,
and tap them on the shoulder to ask them about
a given statement, e.g., ‘What did you learn that
was interesting?
Fun.
Physical way of
communicating
your opinion.
In an evaluation/
documentation context,
it is important that the
same or similar questions
are asked each time the
activity is done.
It may also be useful
to note which children
are being asked and
gauging the evolution
of their responses.
Pupils could act as the facilitator
rather than the teacher: the
person left without a seat
moves into the middle and asks
the next question beginning
‘Anyone who…’ Pupils may need
some guiding thoughts on what
questions to ask that will explore
a specific area for your evaluation.

Activity idea

You can use a similar activity
with your pupils in class time.