'The Creative Curriculum'

[ale233]

I work in a school that teachers with a topic based, creative curriculum. We link the core subjects into the current theme or topic which is the same from Reception through to Year 6. I have to say the school is fantastic and full of very experienced, creative teachers. Does anyone have negative or positive views on this style of teaching? If the school your children are at also teach in this way, have you noticed an increase or decrease in your children's interest and motivation? I have recently planned a topic on the local area for my teaching degree (I'm a mature student) and needed to link Geography, History and RE into it. Although this was done without problems I was conscious of not making tenuous links between the three subjects and am aware that some schools have forced certain subjects into a theme.

[mrz]

My school worked the way you describe up until 10 years when we moved away from all year groups covering the same topic at the same time. We now follow the children's interests more closely and plan themes and topics around these. Some curriculum areas, as you say just doesn't fit into some topics so needs to be taught discretely.

[mummyofexcitedprincesses]

We take a creative aproach at my school but do different topics for different age groups (what is interesting to a 5 year old may not asppeal to a 10 year old). We team teach, so 2 classes amy be doing the same topic but they may access it on different levels.

I agree about not making links for the sake of it, particularly for maths.

[primarymum]

We have cross school themes but each year group covers it in their own way, for example last term our theme was Castles so Reception/yr 1 based theirs on fairy Tales set in castles, Yr 2 looked at Knights and Castles, Yr3/4 covered King Arthur and 5/6 the Norman Conquest. It means we are all linked but can find the subjects that interest our children more.

I think there is nothing worse than trying to show-horn subjects into topics that simply don't fit, some of ours are taught discretely!

[primarymum]

.......and that was shoE-horn......

[Feenie]

Agree totally - many many years ago, on my final teaching practice, I had to teach everything through the topic of breakfast. Some of it was fun, but there was a fair amount of shoehorning, I can tell you.

[IWasThatEasterBunny]

We teach through topics, which affects most, if not all subjects.

We think of very broad ideas before introducing the topic to the children. We share the topic starter at the beginning of term with both classes (a book, film or piece of artwork is a good start) and then work entirely from the children's ideas. We plan against objectives using the new curriculum (we had been using the initial draft Rose curriculum) and make sure these are fully covered by highlighting relevant parts. This is about to be tweaked to ensure different Yr groups are covering all sections.

We've taken this approach for about 18m-2y now. We generally find that the children think of the same broad ideas as us, but always add extra ones we'd never dreamt of! They seem to enjoy learning more if they have have participated in the planning process.

The whole year group has a big evaluation meeting at the end of each half term when we find out what the children think has gone well, or could have been better.

[spudmasher]

curriculum.qcda.gov.uk/new-primary-curriculum/index.aspx
I have just finished crafting this new national curriculum into a creative curriculum for my school. It is much easier to get cross curricular links as the new curriculum is so much looser. I love it. We are running the new national curriculum from Sept 2010. It will be in all schools from Sept 2011.

[mrz]

spudmasher it will be in all schools in Sept 2011 providing we don't get a change of government next month ...

[piscesmoon]

It makes me laugh because it has just gone full circle-back to what it was when I started.(I think that the alternative was a failure). If the government left it to schools they could just get on with it. Any system is successful if the teachers are enthusiastic and believe in it.

[spudmasher]

It has already been ratified.

[mrz]

but the Conservatives have said they will scrap it if they come into power I'm afraid

[spudmasher]

Link please!

[mrz]

Tories plan immediate and radical reform of curriculum

"WHAT A TORY GOVERNMENT WOULD DO ...

• Undertake immediate review of the national curriculum in core subjects of English, maths and science

• Review to be undertaken by "learned societies" such as the Advisory Commission on Mathematics Education, the Institute of Physics and the Royal Society

• Ensure the science curriculum is built around three separate sciences

• Once reconstructed the curriculum would be free from political meddling, perhaps adopting the Dutch method of reviewing it every 10 years

• Abandon the Rose Review of the primary curriculum

• Pilot moving key stage 2 tests into Year 7 and include more "high quality" maths in the assessments, such as algebra and geometry

• Allow all schools to adopt the International GCSE"

[spudmasher]

Oh how funny!!! Thank you for that link! I have to say I agree with Ms Darnton and I love the quote from Iain Wright...'He's making it up as he goes along.....'
If they do get into power I think they will have other things to be getting on with for a bit!!!

[piscesmoon]

It put me right off voting Conservative-schools need to be left alone to get on with things rather than yet another new initiative from people who don't know what it is like in the classroom. Giving an infant 20 mins to do something, doesn't take into account that they may take 10 mins to find a pencil or need to go to the toilet.

[IWasThatEasterBunny]

It isn't really like the old tenuous topic curriculum because of the children's input. For instance, when we did 'The Tunnel' by A Browne last half term, the children came out with the following ideas:
hobbies - class book, clay models,
getting on together,
dump (so we did materials/recycle)
tunnel/exploring (we went looking for funny little creatures on the school field through a tunnel and found photographic and material evidence) (This led to work on letters to creatures, dragons)
hidden animals - non-fiction about animals we could find in the pic
creative writing - the boy's adventure - we put a help message in ice and did melting experiments with this

...and there was more. Of course, we have to embellish, but the basic ideas are the children's.

I love it, but I do have the same fears as mrz, having read Tory ideas about discrete subject teaching. It was less than ten years ago we had to report EXACT subject hours taught per year for every subject to Ofsted. (If we're not careful we may have to read Katie Morag again!!! Aaaah! )

I have a firm belief that education and learning stem from linking subjects, ideas and opinions, and I think the secondary school curriculum needs to address this.

[mrz]

We've been told to "future proof" our Creative Curriculum planning as far as possible

[IWasThatEasterBunny]

Presumably against discrete subject teaching? How are you going to do that? Please share!

[moondog]

A start would be to implement evidence based practice rather than fads based on the subjective viewpoints and idiosyncratic pet theories of those who presently make decisions.

[IWasThatEasterBunny]

But with lack of comparison, couldn't they argue that, for example, our KS1 geography would be better if we taught subjects discretely?

Maybe, for once, teachers could actually say no.... now there's a radical idea.....

[mrz]

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8607677.stm

[IWasThatEasterBunny]

You meean to say that the Rose Curriculum - several years in preparation, which allows us so much flexibility.... and has cost zillions..... is shelved????????

[mrz]

Looks that way
the official announcement says that no agreement with opposition parties could be met so key provisions were removed from the bill including the new primary curriculum.

[NoahAndTheWhale]

DS and DD's school is going to be implementing the Creative Curriculum from this September. There was an evening about it last term and it all sounds good . They will carry on doing some subjects discretely as well.

There's going to be a start to it next term with all the school looking at Africa and starting with African drumming .