Whole school creativity challenge Cawdor Primary school ...



Whole-school creativity challenge - Cawdor Primary School

Headteacher: Cawdor Primary School is set in a rural location. We have approximately 100 children in the mainstream and we have about 20 in the nursery. We see ourselves primarily as one whole school, we call ourselves Team Cawdor. Every year we do one whole school project from nursery right through to primary 7 as it allows us to encompass different skills and see talents shine. This particular term we’re focusing on a blast from the past and really that’s the 1960s. We plan for fortnightly whole school activity sessions. We’d all get together and we would look at how we’re going to divide the children up into teams and what are the main themes that are underlying that big, overarching interdisciplinary project. For instance with the sixties we’re looking at fashion, technology, space age, we’re looking at music and art so teachers and staff would plan tasks specifically to support, challenge, develop problem solving and set the criterial for the end result but within that there’s a great deal of choice. Towards the end of a project the children will be assessed, there will be an end challenge for example producing a record cover for a record company and we would have a competition at the end to see who would be chosen for that. So there will be failures, there will be successes and we’ve got to learn from them and we’re upping the challenge all the way through. Children all working together, for instance a three year old working with an eleven year old might seem a bit strange but we just don’t think you have to be in a certain class to be able to contribute an idea and we have actually been bowled over where some very young children have suggested something that somebody then has then picked up and developed into the main part of their project.

Principal Teacher: They’re listening to other people and engaging in it and negotiating and being open to other ideas. It’s really nice to see the younger ones get involved in that because if we can educate them in terms of working with a group and listening to ideas, we’re already starting at the base level so ultimately as they come through and through the school and get higher and higher then they’ll get better and better at sharing ideas and the benefit of this is that you see all of the children gaining in confidence, whether they’re in nursery, P3, P4 or P7. And they’re building in that confidence together as they move forward through the tasks.

Pupil 1: With the young children sometimes they wouldn’t speak because they felt like overcrowed and everything.

Pupil 2: So when we spoke in the gentle voice they started talking to us because when we started talking gently they started talking a lot more.

Pupil 1: Yeah they felt more comfortable in the group and everything.

Pupil 2: And then they thought because we were talking a lot and we were doing it nice, in a nice way, they thought that they could talk and…

Pupil 1: Yeah they realised they could let their voice come out.

Headteacher: Developing creativity in our children is very, very important for us, it’s developing the whole person. They’re beginning to think out of the box, they are organising things, they’re doing their planning, they’re readjusting things and we’re seeing these skills that they’re developing in other areas of their curriculum and other activities they do. It’s just a well-rounded person growing up that can deal with difficult situations, can think of solutions and can take things forward.

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