Sharing and Reflection Notes From Discussions Lancashire

8/8/2019 Sharing and Reflection Notes From Discussions Lancashire

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IntroductionsAlice: The purpose behind the day – to explore the question `How doyou encourage a culture which inspires? ‘

Jude: I want today to be a gloriously mad collaboration – a mini Hadron

collider leading to a particle of creativity.

First panel question: What holds you tocreativity? What motivates you?Angela Aspinall: Described being a successful Head and having everything in

the school neat and tidy and perfect – and then one day looking out through the

fence around the school and realising that what was òut there’ was as important

as what was inside:

“My moral compass started from looking outside and seeing that terraced house

with the graffiti and the burned out car and realising that we had to look outwards.

The basis of creativity in the school is that it has to be inspiring, it has to be

adventurous, and it has to be what the students want to learn.”

Andy O’Brien: Described growing up in Wales and the influence of Max Boyce’s

poem `The Outside Half Factory’. This talks about the `bits of magic’ that happen

when a good rugby player emerges from the Valleys.

“It’s about trying to create those bits of magic for students and recognising them

when they happen.”

Two stories from his life as a teacher had influenced him:

1. Seeing a teacher teaching a first Math’s lesson by getting students to number

each page of a 60 page exercise book2. Hearing a student react to the description of Wordsworth’s daffodils by saying

that he would `kick the heads off them’

Quotation: Against the ruin of the world there is only one event – the creative act.

[WB Yeats]

“You’re trying to create an establishment – the whole entire establishment – where

people can be creative.”

“I have no problem with the concept of the school being a factory – I do have a

problem with what is being produced in that factory.”

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Creative Agent Sharing and Reflection DayLancashire 16th November 2010



Mark Burns: Described experiences in teaching which connected him tocreativity:

“I used to benchmark on the things you are supposed to do – and do them

differently.”

An inspiration was meeting a child in a very impoverished East London school

who, when asked to say what they wanted to be, said “An Olympic swimmer and

an author and an explorer”. Mark was struck by the extent of that ambition – and

what so often happens to it.

“Do we have to do it this way? If we don’t how else can we do it?”

Roger Hill: Described how, despite a very well resourced childhood being taken

to places and given the right things to play with, he gained creativity from

opposition:

“There is an original impulse that goes on in you. I had a mother who said no to

everything I wanted to do so I became creative at finding ways round that.

It links to your own momentum, your own moral compass. It’s a line which takes

you somewhere – you have to have the momentum, be well resourced, and be

motivated to travel along that line. I’m the kind of person who enjoys playing and

doesn’t like being told what to do – I tend to do the opposite. In this current mediadigital world there is only on and off – for me, there is no black and white, there is

a middle space where creativity lives. For survival purposes I live in that space

and in work culture I make that space for other people I work with.”

Liz Beaumont - For Liz a major moment of inspiration was encountering the

Plowden Report 1967 during her teacher training:

“People were saying creativity, personalised learning, overcoming poverty,

involving parents – it’s all there [in the Report] in 1967.Since then nothing else [as

important]has come my way until the Cambridge Review of Primary Education last

year.”

Pat Cochrane - The factors that inspired Pat were:

“Social justice, the power of the imagination, a bit of bolshiness, the fact that I

grew up in the 60s as a woman...”

“Teaching experience had an impact because I couldn’t bear the fact that what we

were doing was squeezing people into what we could provide.”

“Seeing the impact of various arts sessions such as drumming session showedher that the arts can change people’s lives and that’s what holds me to creativity.”

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Individual Questions to PanelistsQuestion to Andy.How and why have you extended the work you’ve done atAccrington Academy into national arenas?Andy:1. Because of my experience of professional development. It’s often notbeen good for teachers. Where it has worked it has been dialogues.CPhas been a giant CPD experience for the whole school.

2 People talk a lot of rubbish about projects to make them sound

fantastic. 9 times out of 10 it is not true..I wanted staff to be able to getto the nub of the problem.3. Why move to being a School of Creativity? Because I want my staff and students to go out and take the same mindset with them – I wantpeople to experience stuff beyond the walls. It shouldn’t just stop whenyou leave the school gates. When you take something out of itsenvironment it can become something much bigger.4. The National Advisory Group should not be an institution but a

movement. This [the CP ethos] could all fade quite quickly – we have aresponsibility to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Question to RogerHow is it that you are able to adapt and be flexible in such ahuge range of environments?When in doubt I often do the I Ching – and it usually boils down to `StayCalm’! The same old advice usually applies `Go Backwards and Look

Forwards’ – re-acess the things that are important and go forwardbecause it isn’t nostalgia, it’s about moving on, moving forward. Goback to where all the roads meet – re-examine that idea of mastery –something you have done 10,000 times....retreat to that point where allof your skills have formed and move outwards to what you can be.

Question to Mark Can you tell us what it means to be `motivated and loving it’and what interested you about it?

You look at what it is that defines us and how that moves us forward,Passion – is this enabling, encouraging and nurturing passion in others?It’s the power of feedback – being asked what we think, a journey to getnear, constantly exploring rather than arriving.What keeps me interested? The love of being on the bus – as long asthe bus is steering in the direction of our passion.

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Question to PatWhat are the most significant changes you’ve seen this

programme achieve?Where CP works well it is completely transformative- you can feel itwhen you walk into the space.

There’s a huge resilience [resistance] in education to take things backto where they used to be: it helps schools to open up the walls, workbeyond them.In some places it doesn’t work so well and what you’re shown is aproject.Really helps to motivate people. Conversation, mutual respect, genuine

listening but pushing the boundaries.

Question to LizHow have you motivated and inspired your staff team?A lot of young teachers have never known teaching that wasn’tprescriptive – they’ve been trained under that relentless `teach, teach,and test ’method, they don’t know the excitement of a creativecurriculum...

You have to hold on to your fundamental educational beliefs by yourfingernails...I‘ve tried to find ways within school of being a creativemanager.Having a fantastic Agent really helps to motivate people.I’ve been able to lead and motivate because of the quality of ourrelationships with CP and with our Agent.

Question to AngelaHow are you able to do all the leadership roles you do and still

have a life?Angela told a story about Blondin – walking on a tightrope across the

Grand Canyon – everybody wanted him to do it again, backward,pushing a wheelbarrow. He agreed but asked if anyone wanted to be inthe wheelbarrow! No takers....It’s not just all about me – if it is we’re in trouble. It’s about fantasticteams – people who have the same moral compass.If you don’t say creativity is as important as literacy and numeracy

you’ve got a problem.Angela related how she was told not to sing in the school choir but tomime because she was singing out of tune and very loudly withenjoyment

Let our children sing- it doesn’t matter how bad they are or what stagethey’re on – let them sing through life.

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Group Discussions

People talked about:• Cohesion – how you make connections between political and

religious groups/schools that are in the same community but don’tcommunicate• How to motivate and engage teachers – how to move it beyond the`little experiment’ the School coordinator is àllowed ‘ to do and take itacross the school• Coaching or mentoring?• The unacknowledged fact that many children have very good andpositive experiences of secondary school

Heading 3

Children of the sun, see your time has just begun, searching for yourways, through adventures every day. Every day and night, with thecondor in flight, with all your friends in tow, you search for the Cities of Gold. Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah... wishing for The Cities of Gold. Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah...some day we will find The Cities of Gold. Do-do-do-do ah-ah-ah, do-do-do-do, Cities of Gold. Do-do-do-do, Cities of Gold. Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah...some day we will find The Cities of Gold.

The Panel’s questions to the AgentsAndy: Creativity and Knowledge – can you develop them symbioticallyor it it one or the other?

Debate about coaching vs mentoring approaches

Mark: Sowing seeds: what are the qualities we are looking to developwhich will sustain the programme after changes?

Agents:Challenge - questioning incongruity

The ongoing state of questioning and being, not just òn’ or òff’ in

Roger’s example

Mark: leadership, evolution rather than revolution, making converts,doesn’t matter if they move on, people with charisma, able to distilcreativity, being able to infect others

Is creativity a virus or a bacterium?

Andy: What allows you to work effectively with teachers?

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Agents:When you just let things roll, when you playProfessional respect, going both ways

Pat: are there key processes that are the core of the CP success thatdon’t cost much money and could be presented to schools to buydirect?

Agents:Collaboration is the root of it all. Good relationships will matter and theschool’s experience of successPat: The process of enquiry makes the ideas travel – is what matters

Angela: How do we ensure that children continue to grow upontransition?

Agents:It’s what you give them inside themselves – self-belief

Transition is for the child – we need to fully understand what transitionactually does – lose some of the detrimental language like the term

`feeder’ schools in favour of `partner ‘schools – develop continuity of curriculum – find a way of showing children how the curriculumtransfers – get over some of the professional barriers – there should bemuch more cross-matching and dialogue between primary andsecondary teachers.

Ability based transition should help give continuity

Yr 7s should be the top of the school because they have just arrived

with all that positive experience although not every primary experienceis as good

Roger: How can you develop a diagnostic sense in education ratherthan a prescriptive one?

What is the UK for at the moment? If we could answer that, we wouldknow what to do about our education system.

Liz: Succession planning: what’s the solution to the double edgedsword of the strong leader?

Governor involvement – getting interviewees for a headship to lead acreative assembly on a cultural theme in front of the children so the

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pupils could judge them.

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Sharing and Reflection Notes From Discussions Lancashire