A 'virtual gallery' to support art and other things

Last year I was involved in an advisory capacity with a new publication for art and design teachers in Key Stages 1 and 2. I think this is an excellent resource containing programmes of study for each year and covering all the major disciplines including drawing and IT. I would recoemmend it for all art subject co-ordinators as it contains practical carefully sequenced programmes which illuminate skills and good practice in the subject.

The publication includes a CD with really good resources for teachers including a large number of visual images and references that can be used to support the work. But I really like the software to create a virtual gallery that is also included, almost as an afterthought. It allows teachers and children to create a virtual gallery using their own pictures. The programme allows you to walk round the gallery and it also has a feature that enables a catalogue to be printed. This means that children (classes) can curate and share their galleries. It gets even more interesting when you stop thinking of it as an art gallery and start to think how it can be used in other contexts where children can construct a learning environment for themselves or other children.

The publication is called Art Express and details are here www.acblack/artexpress.com. I have been playing about with the gallery and here is an example of what it looks like.

True Stories

A really interesting day.  Most of it was spent with the Latvian Minister for Education. She was in the country for a short visit to explore the work of Creative Partnerships. We visited Chalfont’s Community College and Ashmead School in Aylesbury. Ashmead is a special place it is in the middle of an area social deprivation and provides an island of mystery and imagination for the pupils who go there.

Learning is literally an adventure as children arrive in school to find a car overturned on the field. Later they discover metal objects all over the school: hanging from the ceiling is a drum from a washing machine, for instance. Over the next few days clues are found pieces of paper fall out of the register which when studied can be made into a map. Children begin to discuss and explore these phenomena. They contact the police to report the incident of the car – and the police attend. Gradually the children discover that all this is the work of the Iron Man and they then find and work from the book. I say work but, of course, that is not how the children perceive it. It’s just school and it’s always like this. This term they are discovering junk and rubbish all over the place every morning. They are making dens with it. But I cannot say more because they don’t yet know what is going to happen next.

This is a wonderful example of learning through first hand experience and discovery. These are real investigations for the children and, although  carefully managed by teachers, the children can take the story in the direction they want to. Often the story is supplemented by role play and visits by adults in character. So Tinkerbelle and a couple of 'lost boys' (ex pupis) visited last year when they were exploring the story of Peter Pan.

There was also the time when all the children were 'evacuated' while exploring the 2nd World War. But thats another story made real by the teachers at Ashmead School.

Just Playing

We all talk about creativity and how important it is. But, how often do we really, actively, promote, model and provoke it? How often do we, or students, take risks? How often do we just play? This is just to note one such occassion where a group of creative practitioners and some KS3 students spent a day in a blacked out drama studio to find out what they could do with the space using objects, light, sound, film, animation and whatever came to mind. The video just captures a few moments towards the end of the day but it gives a flavour of the piece - reminded me of a Soft Machine gig of the 1960s, but no one else was old enough to know what I was talking about.
Chalfonts Community College are funded through Creative Partnerships as a 'Change School'. They have found space in their timetable each term for all KS3 students to spend two days working with creative partners to develop familiarity and skills using new technologies - sound, animation, film, photography and collage. This event brought all the creative partners back into school for a final day in which they and the children were given the opportunity to make/do something using the space. It was in effect simply giving permission to play. I guess one interesting question might be, who, was giving, who, permission to play - teachers, students or practitioners?

Brit Art at the RCA

I went to the Royal College of Art show this weekend - continuing the theme of visiting student shows. I was particularly interested in animation because of the student animations I had seen earlier in the week. These were indeed interesting with many hand drawn animations with a delightfully delicate and subtle use of line. A significant difference between these and some of the A Level animations seems to be in the extended and more abstracted narrative of these RCA animations. Curiously only two RCA students explored the notion of projection into, or onto, other things leaving the rest just presenting via rectangular projections on screens. I am always intrigued by the synergy of projected video into unusual and unexpected situations and am surprised there was not more of this. 

I thought it could be interesting to draw down animators of this quality into school as animators in residence. The equipment and techniques are available in schools, and students are already using them with confidence. Unfortunately neither the RCA or the students had a web prescence which showed work. Most students had websites under construction. So it is hard to recommend contacts. By the time this is read this may have been remedied - check RCA website.

In the Battersea galleries sculpture was usually big or heavy. There were two which I found interesting. However, most of it seemed to have the surly charmlessness of adolescent boys' displaying their underpants. An RCA twitterfeed at midday had breathlessly announced that Charles Saatchi had visited the show that morning. Saatchification was indeed fairly endemic as questions of 'what is art and form?' were once again rehearsed, but rather pedantically, and without the elegance and wit that characterised the same debate in the last century from Duchamp to Damian Hirst, via Carl Andre. Brit Art did seem to have lost its sense of humour. A Levels were more fun.

Garden Feature

EYFS (Early Years and Foundation Stage) Guidance specifies the absolute importance of outdoor learning and activity "These activities help children in getting stimulation, well-being and happiness, and is the means through which they grow physically, intellectually and emotionally. Outdoor provision is an essential part of the child’s daily environment and life."

So early yesterday I was really impressed to see this peacock amongst the sand and water trays in Cuddington School. However, my enthusiastic anticipation of childrens' heightened well being and happiness was somewhat deflated after a colleague described the bird as a vicious and peevish creature. So the source of stimulation was, in fact, merely a health risk. Good to learn life's key lessons early I guess.

Home Games

Just spent a fascinating hour with a group of students on a games design course. The students (from Chalfonts CC) were at their homes as were their teachers and I. The course leader (Roxana) was in Chicago and another presenter Greg Trefry was speaking from New York. All done using webconferencing with simple webcams and domestic broadband - worked easily. The system used was Adobe Connect and is free for all Bucks schools (talk to Ian Usher). Afterwards it was intriguing to discuss pedagogy with the presenters. For instance, how you can work through the lack of feedback through body language and expression which you get in a classroom but not in a webconference. And I learned so much about games and the principles of designing them. Really interesting evening - yes evening, it was all done between 7.30 and 8.30pm.

Carols, Culture and Creativity

Just been to the Mandeville School carol concert at St Mary's Church. A really good evening with a programme that ranged from Islamic Nasheeds, raga through Bollywood dancing to Silent night with all the best carols in between. Also really good to hear (as a visual learner I was going to say 'see') teacher colleagues original arrangements and personal creativity. There are times when I really miss being a teacher in a school.

Primary Sculpture

I saw a really good sculpture in a primary school recently (Long Crendon).

The design came from children and it was made by a local sculptor welding the shapes cut from assorted pipes. Brilliant rusted orange colours. It is about values and the leaves that hang from the branches contain words by the children.

I've not seen anything like it in schools but it did remind me of the wonderful African 'tree of life' sculpture welded entirely from old guns, pistols and ammunition clips that was in the British Museum a couple of years ago.

Change I do hope so

Writing this while attending a creativity conference organised by Creative Junction. I should be in a workshop but I am just too old to 'do drama'. It is sharing and celebratory meeting for schools in the current ‘Change School’ programme. This is a Creative Partnership three year funded programme which involves schools working with creative practitioners to develop creativity in the curriculum and in teaching and learning.

One salutary reminder from a keynote address was that that the current funding pattern is probably secure until 2011. It occurs to me that a real issue for all of us is to consider what will be left in 2012 for the next generation of children. How is this work ensuring that teaching, pedagogy and the curriculum is being changed and how are we evaluating and then embedding any significant new practice we are developing. I worry that we are spending our time (and finite funding) on projects for children which simply confirm what we already know - that children enjoy and become enthused by changes to routines and access to artists. But if the programme is predicated upon this level of funding for artists in schools I fear it is simply not sustainable. Far more important for me is the need to change, inform and inspire teachers so that they can lead creativity for this and all the subsequent generations they teach.

The role of artists, or creative practitioners is also an intriguing issue. I worry that too often they fall back into the simplistic default role of workshop leader. This is the least important role, not least because children’ work should be led by teachers who are always best placed to manage and lead learning. The artist as workshop leader is a problem for various reasons. They may not be good teachers - why should they be? They may respond to the expectations the school has of them by setting up formulaic workshops in which children are no more than apprentice labourers in the production predefined by the artist, with little ownership and little access to first hand creativity.

Earlier there was a significant presentation by Priory School about work they are doing to support the peer and self review of creativity for pupils. It unpacks and reinterprets the conceptual framework of creativity developed by Ken Robinson and transforms these into a set of cards/pictograms which enable children and teachers to reflect upon different aspects of creativity. It was used to confirm and analyse the nature of creativity being developed and through reflection, sustain and improve the experience.

But it was good to once again join a group of teachers excited, dedicated and discovering for themselves why it is important and exciting to be a teacher.

New Media New Ideas

I spent a day with artists and KS3 students at Chalfonts Community College recently. This was during their regular off-timetable creativity/enrichment days. A key feature of the event was that these artists were mainly working in new media. There were filmakers, sound engineers, flash software animators, artists using digital images and even some using traditional crafts. This was an intensive two day experience. At the end of the day work was shared and most children had completed the task - made and edited the film, created the animation, recorded the radio jingle.

Some of these were full of the natural and naive humour of youth, others were more predictable. However, the main point is that the children and teachers were all gaining first hand and intensive experience of using new media: making and editing film and sound. These are new experiences and skills. It will be interesting to see how they will be developed in the next few years. Perhaps in three years time the geography homework will be to make a radio broadcast about traffic in the town centre rather than conduct the survey and write it up.

In addition to drawing down expereince of new media into the heart of Key Stage 3 and begining to develop a critical mass of users - both students and teachers - there is another model being developed here.

Every term the curriculum in KS3 is collapsed for one or two days and this provides an opportunity for students to work with greater intensity than normal. It also provides an opportunity to work with other professionals AOTs (adults other than teachers as they were once called). This is intriguing because it is embedded in the regular curriculum and sustainable by the AOTs because it involves focussed work for only one or two days. It is not possible to sustain this engagement by following the traditional school timetable of an hour a week. So this is a significant model.

Developing Creativity

Recently I spent an afternoon working with Advanced Skills Teachers talking about creativity. The intention was to establish a common vocabulary and set of reference points. It was also to begin a discussion about how AST's might work strategically with each other and with the authority to develop creativity in schools. In the event there was little time to develop a discussion and evaluations (rightly) noted that those present had not had any time to discuss the issues raised.

This is for them. Blogs are new to me but it seems interesting to see if they provide an opportunity for easily sharing ideas and to continue a debate begun at face to face meetings. If so it will be a useful way to sustain discussion following professional development courses, among other things. I should note that this blog is an attempt to research the use and value of this medium for professional debate. This blog is not openly published and is only available if people have the URL. It is also a personal project.

In my presentation I said that, AST's, it seems to me, are particularly important people. They are the people who are inventing and testing the next generation of pedagogies. They are the champions of innnovation because they have credibility based on their day to day practice in their own classrooms. We explored the role of AST's as 'champions' who are prepared to develop innovative practice as well as the role they have as mentors and supporters of other teachers. We noted that some of the time available to them can be, and has been, legitimately devoted to developing their own skills and innovative practice. If they can not pursue innovation who can?

In our meeting we explored the concept of AST's modelling creativity and working with other AST's to explore new practice. For instance, AST's for art and mathematics developing and testing ideas together. We also noted that the loosening hold of QCA 'units' on the curriculum and the evolution of local distinctiveness is an opportunity for AST's to develop and promote new curriculum units and resources. Again if AST's don't do this who will? However, we did not explore what this might mean in practice and this was a missed opportunity - hence this blog.

For instance some ideas might be:

• AST's developing and publishing exemplar material illustrating creativity in teaching and learning. In this case the modells of practice would be undertaken inn their own school. The material could be written up in AST time.
• AST's working together to develop curriculum plans and resources (within subjects and across subjects)
• AST's working with advisers and consultants to develop creative practice.
• AST's promoting creativity in their work with other schools - perhaps developing a repertoire or menu of skills and practice that schools might opt for.

We would welcome the comments of those at the meeting and the opportunity to see if a blog is a useful way to pursue professional debate. We understand that this can not replace personal contact and we hope to pursue the idea of a focussed seminar about creativity next term.