The below blog is part of a series of blog posts that Commotion Dance and Guests are writing this year to address the importance of being creative. This is in response to the BBC article published early this year about creative subjects being squeezed out of schools.

Creativity is a word that you will hear and see often in a school environment, in mission statements, Ofsted reports, prospectuses and subject titles. It is something that is often discussed in a parent teacher consultation, praised in an award giving assembly and written in an end of year report. It is worrying to me as a primary school teacher that the word creativity is given such gravitas in the world of teaching, yet in practice is becoming harder and harder to embed fully into the current learning environment.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that not only children, but adults too, learn and retain new things if they are taught to them in an exciting and creative way. I myself have taught straight forward well delivered lessons to a class of 30 children knowing the lesson was good, but that’s just it, it was ok. However this to me is not good enough. I know the difference between straight forward lessons that have gone ok and done the job, and lessons which are truly alive, with involved, engaged children who are fully hooked.

There are two elements to creativity that I see as a teacher; that of the students and that of the teachers. I truly believe that each is vitally important and should be a partnership. Creativity is not a solitary track of one person’s idea; it should be flexible, changeable, full of risk taking and idea sharing. To execute this in a modern day classroom is not an easy thing, it is an art rehearsed over time. Even then it is a big ask of modern day teachers.

Teaching today in the modern day system in the UK throws up huge barriers to full creative learning in every school. The problem with this? We are missing out on the fundamental way in which students learn best, we are ignoring whole groups of talented learners, we are creating gaps and as a result stopping students from progressing. Teachers are loaded with paper work, which in many cases is unnecessary. They have to deal with unrealistic requests from management, government and parents themselves. I was once asked by a parent as a reception teacher with 2 adults to 30 children could I please write down what one boy was doing every 5 minutes so that the parent could know exactly what her son was doing throughout each and every minute of the day. I have also been told by another parent, “we shouldn’t have to toilet train our children before coming to school because you can just sort them out in school, can’t you.” Yes, there are many other pressures and time barriers that work against having time to plan for and deliver an exciting creative full year of learning. I do not blame those teachers who have somewhere along the line slowly lost some of the creativity in their teaching, it is not their fault. However as an individual it is something I am not willing to let slip away over time, no matter what. I have found that creativity in teaching, is for me, the key weapon to being an incredible teacher and seeing incredible things happen for all children.

As a teacher, creativity is what has made my children progress. It is what has allowed all children regardless of ability, age, ethnic background or disability make progress in my class. Not just on an academic level but in all areas of their learning. I believe it is a mistake to limit and categorise subjects to the creative and the academic. Numeracy, Literacy and Science are often the subjects where creativity is needed the most. Who doesn’t know a child that can’t remember numeracy facts easily, yet knows them off by heart when learnt as a fun song or a rap?

My hope for all the students I teach is that they grow into people who can problem solve, think for themselves, have new and original ideas, be confident, unafraid to get things wrong, to try again, to be able to find information and research, to be open to other ideas and to be good at listening, watching, assessing and evaluating. To learn how to do all of this you have to be able to access creativity and I have to engage students in a creative way so that they do learn these life skills.

Here is an example of a lesson that could be given in two ways. You could be sat at a desk listening to a teacher talk about how to measure the perimeter of a shape. You could watch a slide show on how to do this and listen to someone tell you how. You could then be given a worksheet and a book and be asked to complete the questions using a ruler in silence.

Instead you could be taken outside onto a field and work in small mixed ability groups. Your teacher could give you a range of different equipment; string, pens, measuring tapes, trundle wheels, rulers and lots of different items such as buckets, mats, books and so on. You could be read an exciting story about an amazing explorer needing to measure things for ground breaking research. Then you are asked one question, can you try and measure around these objects? Have a go. Then take part in conversing, thinking of ideas, disputing with friends, trial and error, recording data and having your teacher interject and facilitate the learning. You will then learn that you have been measuring the perimeter of shapes and when this would be useful in everyday life.

My world is a better one because being creative allows me to enjoy life and my job. It is better because I get to see children learn new things as a direct result of creativity and to be excited to do this. Being creative and passing this on to children is almost the sole reason I do what I do. I see it as my calling to make a child’s experience of learning a fun, exciting, positive and creative one in a time full of unnecessary testing, fear of failure, and in some cases static dictated lessons; I can hold my head high to say that at least the children in my class will experience a creative curriculum…with great results!

 

Susie Tipping

Primary School Teacher, Year 3

Commotion Dance Website