Radical Thinking

"Britain's 50 New Radicals" set me thinking.  Surely, the future for schools... particularly those in challenged communities... is to do more joined-up thinking and more joined-up working, more often.


Britain's New Radicals celebration event from Nesta UK on Vimeo.


http://www.nesta.org.uk/news_and_features/britains_new_radicals

Creativity is about us taking responsibility for our curriculum...

Imagine a multi-disciplinary, topic-based curriculum in which children learn in an immersive environment that is tailored to a specific theme, eg;

Year 1 learn about Robots in their Robots Topic.  They come in on the first day after the Half Term to a classroom that is full of robots of all shapes and sizes.  They play with them, photograph them, draw them.  During the course of the Topic, they learn about electricity, including how to  wire circuits that make robots move and make their eyes glow.  They learn how to build robots from Lego, K’Nex and from junk boxes.  They create animations of their robot’s adventures using Stop-Frame Animation.  The films that they make are shared with the world via Youtube.  The children watch their own and their friends animated adventures at home.  They write stories about their robots and dramatise them.  They learn robot dances.  They learn how to programme robots, how to calculate like robots and they collaborate together to create huge robots that live in the classroom with them for the duration of the topic.

Year 2 have a Pirates Topic for the Half Term.  When children come into the classroom on the first day the classroom is dressed with Jolly Rogers and treasure chests.  Every child is given an eye-patch and immediately makes a skull and crossbones T-Shirt that they wear as their uniform every day of the Topic.  They have Pirate names.  They count their gold in Numeracy, recount their pirate adventures in Literacy, read about other pirates in their reading time and explore maps in their hunt for treasure.  They go to the seaside to smell the sea, to look at boats and ships and to plot their adventures on the High Seas.

Meanwhile, Year 6 pupils study London.  The Topic involves a two day, one night, stay in London, which is paid for from the curriculum budget.  Pupils set off early in the morning on the school minibuses, bought through the economies of scale that a multi-school model enables.  They arrive on the outskirts of the city and then take the tube into the centre.  They visit the museums, galleries and landmarks that they have studied in class.  They take photographs and videos on their IPads and blog about their experiences later on in the evening.  For many children this is their first visit to London and their first experience away from home.  On Day 2 they visit Tate Modern.  They have a packed lunch by Millennium Bridge and debate the relative merits of modern versus traditional art.  The trip is repeated four times over the course of two weeks with pupils from each of the partner schools.  Some of the staff accompany two trips to act as guides and experts.  Pupils from all of the schools meet together after the trips to talk about their experiences.  Some groups collaborate on a follow-up project via Skype video conferencing.

The Curriculum of Me

Building an entire Topic around each individual child is an interesting idea to play with. 

Art: 
lots of opportunities here - self-portraiture, full length portraiture, paintings/drawings of favourite things, belongings, pets, treasured objects

Geography: 
My Map... local area, places of interest, places visited.  This could be interactive.  It could be geo-tagged.  It could include photographs, audio files.
My World... places I've been on holiday, or places that relatives come from, places I'd like to visit (and why), places of interest, places in the news.... places to find out about, research about...

Literacy:
Diaries, biography, recounts (recollections, memories), interviews, play scripts... dramatise key moments in your life.

Numeracy:
databases, draw around yourself... calculate your...

ICT:
make a video diary, make a film, spreadsheets of facts about you, databases

Science:
The Human Body, food diary, speed/fitness tests, fitness tests repeated over time... if I practice as something, can I measure my improvement?

PE:
Personal Bests, Personal Best Efforts, databases, spreadsheets

History:
Personal histories, family histories... Who Do You Think You Are? histories

PHSCE:
Health and well being, emotional well being

Creativity through self-directed learning

This is a suggestion made by Daniel H.Pink in his book 'Drive - The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us'
"Set aside an entire school day and ask kids to come up with a problem to solve or a project to tackle.  In advance, help them collect the tools, information, and supplies they might need.  The let them have at it.  The next morning, ask them to deliver - by reporting back to the class...on their discoveries and experiences."

The desire to do something because you find it deeply satisfying and personally challenging inspires the highest levels of creativity, whether it's in the arts, sciences, or business.
Teresa Amabile
Professor, Harvard University

Routine work can be outsourced or automated; artistic, empathetic, non-routine work generally cannot.
Daniel H. Pink

Insights + Ideas + Impact = Innovation

New ideas come from differences.  They come from having different perspectives and juxtaposing different theories.
Nicholas Negroponte

Mysterious World

I'm delighted that we're developing a new unit of work in Year 3/4 entitled Mysterious World. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigfoot

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loch_Ness_Monster

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unidentified_flying_object


Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, UFO's, the Nazca Lines and much more.... we're going to explore the mysterious and unexplained phenomena that have puzzled people for many years.
We will have lots of writing opportunities: adventure, narrative, reportage.
We'll have lots of opportunities to talk, debate, argue and challenge.
We'll have lots of opportunities to test hypotheses... to research the stories.
We'll have opportunities to create our own hoaxes, films, photographs.
We'll have opportunities to make things and test the Science behind whether we can make them float, or fly.
We'll have a whale of a time doing it...

Space Junk

"Space is so littered with debris that a collision between satellites could set off an 'uncontrolled chain reaction' capable of destroying the communications network on Earth."

To create an exciting and engaging, and relevant, curriculum... we have to link it to the world that our children live in.  We have to present them with real problems and challenges that excite them and allow them not only to learn in school but to learn about themselves and their world beyond the confines of the school day, term or year.

Consider Space Junk...
Space Junk article 
Space Junk Wikipedia page
Asking our children to respond to this challenge as part of an 'Our Place in Space' Topic could get very interesting... 
We would want to know about the planets
We would want to know about space
We'd want to know about rockets and satellites and space missions and scientific breakthroughs and the acts of heroism and folly that have made them possible
We would need to know about gravity and orbits and the atmosphere 
We would need to know about the Earth's and the other planet's relationship with the Sun
We would need to know about the future prospects for our planet


We would need to know how these communications systems work
We'd need to know a little bit about what they do
We would need to know what would be affected were they to stop


We'd need to begin to imagine a different kind of Earth
We'd need to think about the prospects for people, their lives, their jobs and their prospects if many of our technologies and communications systems ceased to exist
We would need to consider the long term implications for the planet


We would need to do some research
We may need to contact some experts in the field
We would need to begin thinking about solutions to the problem of Space Junk
We'd need to do drawings
We'd need to make presentations
We'd need to share our thoughts with one another and be open to the challenges that would be put forward, based on scientific reasoning
We might share some of our ideas with the experts
We would certainly raise awareness of the issues through diagrams, films, booklets and posters
We may be the ones who inspire a child to make this their life's work and we may be the ones that inspired that child to solve the problem and make a lasting difference to the world.
 

 

The Tinkering Curriculum

This one is a cross-over from my Leadership blog.
http://leadingschool.blogspot.com/2012/02/fifty-dangerous-things-you-should-let.html
The Tinkering School  http://www.tinkeringschool.com/
and Brightworks  http://sfbrightworks.org/

There are some great curriculum ideas here.  And what a great idea for a Summer School, or an alternative curriculum that addresses those children who struggle to deal with the mainstream curriculum. 

http://ww3.tvo.org/article/power-tools-can-help-kids-love-learning-expert-says

Life Doesn't Frighten Me

Using books as a stimulus for creative expression:  What about this video as a starter piece...

Creative Spaces 18

I like this as furniture for a common area... Not only does it look nice, it has multiple different arrangements and, thus, functions.

sfbrightworks

"Innovation is a discipline and it is capable of being learned and practised."

Where do we get our inspirations from? 2

Our schools have a lot to learn from modern museum designers and planners.  There are many inspirations that we can draw for our environments from the interactive elements of the museums.
http://www.techniquest.org/start/
techniquest on Youtube

Where do we get our inspirations from? 1

Following blogs like this one from Coulsdon College is a good way of drawing inspirations that can be translated into your own curriculum...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/coulsdoncollege/

Curriculum

Our curriculum should be exciting and engaging.  We should be building a curriculum from the bottom, up... a curriculum that is informed by and responds to children's interests, enthusiasms and passions. 

http://education.lego.com/default.aspx?domainredir=www.legoeducation.com

Opportunities for incidental learning

We have added magnetic letters and numbers to all of the radiators throughout school.  It is having an interesting effect.  Some of our younger children are children are choosing to cluster around the radiators at lunchtime (not because it's cold) and make words/ number problems.  They are challenging each other to make bigger words and solve bigger number problems.  Similar is happening in the classrooms when the younger children are given independent learning time.

Creative Spaces 17

Inspired by Idea Paint, Claire decided to cover the tables in the classroom with lining paper.  The children are able to doodle on the paper, check calculations, spellings, get the 'flow' on their handwriting going before committing it to their books, try spellings to see what 'looks right'.  It is a  really powerful additional tool for both the teacher and the pupil.  Claire has actually taken to marking some of the jottings on the paper.  She can add her own rough drawings, etc that help enable learning by providing a quick visual representation of a concept or a problem for children to address independently.  We are leaving the paper on the tables for several days in order that the children have an immediate reference back to earlier phases of the learning journey.

We, of course, see desk jotters that many adults with desk jobs use.  This enhancement to the classroom achieves the same function.  A great additional support for learning.

"The principal goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done - men who are creative, inventive, and discoverers."
Jean Piaget

By 2014, according to estimates, the US will add another 10 million creative sector jobs to the nation's economy.  The same pattern holds for virtually all of the advanced nations, where the creative class makes up 35% to 45% of the workforce, depending on the country.

"Logic will get you from A to B.  Imagination will take you everywhere."
Albert Einstein

TEDx

Pupil/student creativity:  organise a TEDx and see it for yourself.
http://www.youtube.com/user/TEDxYouth/featured

Creative Spaces 16

Magnetic wallpaper that can be coated with a drywipe vinyl... whiteboards on any surface.
http://www.a1magnetics.co.uk/wallpaper.html

http://www.thethirdteacher.com/imagine/

The Third Teacher

http://www.thethirdteacher.com/

With thanks to my new teacher, James Clarke
http://www.classroom-design.co.uk/

Creative Spaces 15

Winston Churchill's words from the Creative Spaces 10 post, below:
“We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” 
                                                                Winston Churchill 

Just beautiful use of colour and space here.
We cannot help but be uplifted by design like this and by spaces like these.

http://www.architizer.com/en_us/projects/view/little-england-nursery-and-pre-school/20354/

Outside the box

We are out of the box here.  This is a radical vision for a school.  There aren't that many pupils around.  I wonder whether that's how it can be made to work... very low pupil:adult ratios.

http://www.vittra.se/V%C3%A5raskolor/StockholmSyd/Telefonplan.aspx

My thanks to James Clarke

Education Consultant to Spaceoasis

e james@classroom-design.co.uk

w www.spaceoasis.co.uk

m +44 (0)7793 159 645

PE

Snug play presents lots of interesting and exciting ways in which to develop a PE unit of work.  I particularly like the opportunities for collaboration, creativity and exploration.  Children are able to work together to design/create a course, explore different ways of moving around and try different arrangements of the equipment.  Great for traversing.  Just great for fun and engagement...
http://www.snugplay.co.uk/


I quite like the idea of a school owning a full set of bikes, too.  Learning to ride a bike could be one of a series of learning guarantees in PE... like learning to swim, playing in a school team, etc...

Immersive Learning 2

I'm very taken by the Ministry of Stories idea...

Imagine a multi-disciplinary, topic-based curriculum in which children learn in an immersive environment that is tailored to a specific theme, eg;

Year 1 learn about Robots in their Robots Topic.  They come in on the first day after the Half Term to a classroom that is full of robots of all shapes and sizes.  They play with them, photograph them, draw them.  During the course of the Topic, they learn about electricity, including how to wire circuits that make robots move and make their eyes glow.  They learn how to build robots from Lego, K’Nex and from junk boxes.  They create animations of their robot’s adventures using Stop-Frame Animation.  The films that they make are shared with the world via Youtube.  The children watch their own and their friends animated adventures at home.  They write stories about their robots and dramatise them.  They learn robot dances.  They learn how to programme robots, how to calculate like robots and they collaborate together to create huge robots that live in the classroom with them for the duration of the topic.

Year 2 have a Pirates Topic for the Half Term.  When children come into the classroom on the first day the classroom is dressed with Jolly Rogers and treasure chests.  Every child is given an eye-patch and immediately makes a skull and crossbones T-Shirt that they wear as their uniform every day of the Topic.  They have Pirate names.  They count their gold in Numeracy, recount their pirate adventures in Literacy, read about other pirates in their reading time and explore maps in their hunt for treasure.  They go to the seaside to smell the sea, to look at boats and ships and to plot their adventures on the High Seas.

The next time I'm in London I plan to take a trip to the Ministry of Stories.

Creative Spaces 14 - Immersive Learning 1

Following on from the Ministry of Stories blog entry below (Creative Spaces 11 http://wilsonm011.blogspot.com/2012/01/creative-spaces-11.html)... what about immersive learning environments in which classrooms are dressed for Topics to create a thoroughly immersive experience... eg; a classroom full of inflatable dinosaurs for the Dinosaurs topic...
http://www.lazyboneuk.com

Creative Spaces 13

These are great...

Reading Hideaway from www.bookspaceforschools.co.uk

They put me in mind of the Think Pods at Media City, BBC, Salford

Alphabet shopper

Early Years Literacy...
A bag for each letter... filled with objects beginning with the letter sound
or
Children take the bag and fill it with objects beginning with that letter sound
There's an upper v lower case argument, of course...
£12.50 each from www.oliverbonas.com
Make your own much cheaper....

I like the idea of large letters to go into these bags too... Something tactile.

What about spraying the letters with ideapaint (http://www.muraspec.com/ideapaint), turning them into a whiteboard that you can write on... lots of words beginning with that letter.  Children could go around the setting, collecting words to write on... giving a great assessment opportunity.  The words can then be wiped off and the letter returned to the bag...

Creative Spaces 12

Outdoor needs a mention, too...

http://www.thegardenescape.co.uk/

Creative Spaces 11

Nick Hornby created the Ministry of Stories - a Monster Supplies Shop shop and creative writing space for Young People in Hoxton, London.  

"The Ministry of Stories is a creative writing and mentoring centre for young people in east London. We use storytelling to inspire young people aged 8-18, in the belief that writing unleashes their imaginations and builds confidence, self-respect and communication. Nick Hornby, Lucy Macnab and Ben Payne founded the Ministry of Stories in 2010. In its first year, over 3000 young people took part in our volunteer-led workshops and writing projects. Our inspiration came from the writer Dave Eggers and educator Ninive Calegari, who opened a shop for pirates and writing centre called 826 Valencia in San Francisco. To find us, you'll need to go through Hoxton Street Monster Supplies, Purveyor of Quality Goods for Monsters of Every Kind..."  
http://www.ministryofstories.org/

See also 826Valencia - a shop for pirates and creative writing studio in LA.
http://826valencia.org/

Schools can, of course, create their own Ministries of Stories, their own shops, their own Writing Studios....

Design Thinking

Design Thinking Brisbane from Danielle Carter on Vimeo.

Problem Finders

Ewan McIntosh argues at TEDxLondon that we need to be teaching Problem Finding, not Problem Solving...  an interesting argument.  I like the TED for Children idea...
http://www.ted.com/pages/organize_tedx_event

Numbers

In 2003, a total of five exabytes of data existed. Now we generate that every two days. We are, literally, more creative than ever.

In the amount of time it takes you to read this blog posting, roughly 382 Android phones will be activated; more than 250,000 words will be written on Blogger; and 48 hours of video will be uploaded to YouTube.

There are two billion of us connected to the internet across the globe. By 2020, there will be five billion people accessing the internet on over 50 billion devices – phones, tablets, TVs, even refrigerators. The internet is information, but information is inseparable from the people who are creating, consuming, and sharing it. And the web is no longer anonymous – it’s built on real people and their connections, opinions, and ideas.

... and reproduced in Technologies blog

http://www.thinkwithgoogle.co.uk

Creative Spaces 10

The last word on this topic, for now, belongs to Winston Churchill.  A great quote.  One that recognises the importance of our physical surroundings.

“We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” 

Creative Spaces 9 - Early Years

Collapsible tents as easily managed Early Years dens...
They go down a storm...
£39.99 from decathlon.co.uk

Creative Spaces 8 - what are we learning from the shops??

Shops try to market things attractively in order to make them desirable, in order to persuade people that they want them.  Are we learning anything from this approach in schools?
There is a great deal in marketing.
We can make books more attractive to children by the way we display them... by how much value we are seen to be giving them.  We can encourage better habits and improved reading habits.

We can encourage good behaviour through marketing.  Some schools give out merits as a positive reinforcement for the desired behaviour.  Some link rewards to the merits.  By marketing the rewards... and by providing a varied set of rewards in order that all pupils can realistically aspire to achieving them (and some pupils choose to defer gratification in order to achieve higher value rewards)... they become even more desirable.

And I like the idea of a Cabinet of Curious things... things that cause children to stop and think, look carefully, ask questions, contemplate the meaning of... perhaps go away and find out about, learn about, become expert, pass their expertise on to others.
These things could potentially be tied into a rewards system... potentially giving the reward even greater significance and value when it was eventually attained.

Creative spaces 7

Creative Spaces 6 - developing Enterprise and Community

...And I'm interested, then, where the link between curriculum development and environment/creativity happens.
Developing a Community Space in the school that links to curriculum development around creativity and entrepreneurialism is compelling.
Imagine that pupils are given the task of developing a product or set of products, working with their clients to produce a specification and then working to achieve a cost and sale price that gives a profit margin.  The products, once complete, are marketed and are attractively displayed in a purpose designed community area.  The community area, in addition to providing display space for the children's products, displays school uniform, works of art and books that parents can browse and/or buy and gifts that children can trade in, having achieved merits for good behaviour.  Pupils look after the running of the 'shop' - they take the stock and manage any profits.
The community space provides coffee and free wi-fi for the community.  There is a ready supply of brownies, cookies and other foodstuffs made by pupils in their Food Technology sessions.

 Inspirations for design layouts come from a range of sources.  Shops, gift shops and offices provide interesting sources of inspiration because the people who design these spaces often think in a different way to people who design schools.  They are seeking to make the environments appear attractive and to persuade people into certain desired behaviours.
Aren't we in the same business in schools?

These photos that were the inspiration for the Community Space were taken in the Tate Modern Gift Shop.
Integrating cameras into phones was a master stroke... it means we've got our cameras with us wherever we go.  School Leaders... get snapping!

Creative Spaces 5

If we could design a school environment from scratch, what would it look like...
Some starter ideas:
http://www.designjuices.co.uk/2011/03/20-inspirational-office-workspace-designs/

Creative Spaces 4 - Thinkwithgoogle

“What works for one company won’t work for all. Take time to understand the essence of your culture and use it as inspiration to wear your heart on the walls.”

I like this quote.  Substitute 'school' for 'company'.
http://www.thinkwithgoogle.co.uk/quarterly/innovation/room-to-think.html

Creative Spaces 3 - Why don't schools look like this?

A continuation of my call for our schools to be unique and interesting spaces that fire creativity and instil pride.

Google offices from around the world.... from http://www.officesnapshots.com
Interestingly, each of the Google offices looks very different and in one way or another reflects the city in which it is located.

Creative Spaces 2 - Spaceoasis

Why do schools have to look JUST functional?
Why do schools have to look the same... with furniture and equipment bought from the same supplier?
Should we be looking to combine function with good design?
I believe so.  By creating a beautiful and interesting environment for children we stimulate their thinking.  We develop their critical thinking.  We develop their ability to appreciate beauty and artistry in the world around them.  We broaden their awareness.  We sharpen their instincts for what's nice and what isn't.  We raise their expectations.  We hone their creativity.  We

Let's be thinking about what's nice, what compliments the environment, what's quirky and unusual, what's going to stimulate thinking or prompt a smile... and not just what's easiest to get straight from the catalogue.

Furniture that combines function with design:
http://www.spaceoasis.co.uk/

Creative Spaces 1 - Ideapaint

I am interested in the school environment, how it promotes and enhances creativity and collaboration.  When I come to classroom and school re-design, I'll be basing it around Ideapaint...

See my School Leadership blog for more on the School Environment
http://leadingschool.blogspot.com/2012/01/school-environment.html
and
http://leadingschool.blogspot.com/2012/01/school-hall.html