creativity

How can creativity impact education?

Hey bloggers hope you’re all doing well.

The next subject I’m going to focus on will be creativity and how it has an impact on education. From my own experience I think creativity is mega important to have in education as it helps children to be more interested and intrigued when in the classroom environment. Could you imagine a school without any creativity? What it would be like? Would the child enjoy it as much? There are so many ways creativity can have an impact on education just by doing some and fun things within lessons.

First things first, what is creativity?

‘’Ask a group of teachers what they mean by creativity and you will get a huge variety of responses’’ (Desailly, J, 2012)

Creativity can be viewed as having 4 distinct parts

·         Using imagination

·         Pursuing purposes

·         being original

·         Judging value

(Desailly, J, 2012)

Creativity in terms of being in the primary classroom can mean several different things. One could be ‘Teaching creatively’ which is also used in the NACCCE report as using imaginative approaches to make learning more interesting for the child (Desailly, J, 2012).

Desailly suggests that teaching creatively links in with the creative curriculum and is used by teachers who work in these kind of ways:

·         Putting learning within authentic contexts, using real life situations wherever they can add them in.

·         Using a variety of teaching methods including some that might involve working in a role or a facilitator.

·         Expecting children to work in a variety of different groups with a number of different outcomes.

·         Using a number of approaches to view different levels.

(Desailly, J, 2012)

I was lucky enough to interview a current primary school teacher on ‘How can creativity impact education’ I think being able to talk with a primary school teachers helps to understand more of what they deal with on a day to day basis and how they do what they can to make the best things happen for the children. Miss Morey said that ‘’creativity is an important part of the foundation phase curriculum, I think creativity encourages imagination as well as pupil voice in the classroom, I also think creativity is extremely important especially in the early years of school’’ (Morey, 2017)

In the National Curriculum Aim One is that the school should enable pupils to think creatively and critically, to solve problems and to make a difference for the better. It should give them the opportunity to become creative, innovative, and enterprising (QCDA, 2009).  The National Curriculum shows the six “key skills” and within the 6 key skills there is “thinking skills”. Incorporated in this is “creative thinking” which states that “enable pupils to generate and extend ideas, to suggest hypotheses, to apply imagination, and to look for alternative innovative outcomes” (QCDA, 1999). This is considered as one of the skills which are “universal” and “embedded in the subjects of the National Curriculum and are essential to effective learning.”

The new National curriculum will be brought in, in 2022 and it will have six ‘areas of learning and experience’.

·         Expressive arts.

·         Health and well-being.

·         Humanities (including RE which should remain compulsory to age 16).

·         Languages, literacy and communication (including Welsh, which should remain compulsory up to age 16 and modern foreign languages).

·         Mathematics and numeracy.

·         Science and technology.

(GOV, 2017)

This will also include three cross curricular responsibilities which are numeracy, literacy and digital competence.

Thanks for reading today’s blog, I hope you are all learning new information about each topic.

Reference list

 Desailly, J (2012) Creativity in the Primary Classroom. London: Sage Publications.

GOV (2017) available at: http://gov.wales/topics/educationandskills/schoolshome/curriculuminwales/curriculum-for-wales-curriculum-for-life/?lang=en accessed:9^th December 2017

Morey, K (2017) Current Primary school teacher.

Pintrest (no date) available at: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/lessonplanet/quotes-for-teachers/ accessed on:9^th December 2017

QCA (1999). The national curriculum: Handbook for primary teachers in England, key stages 1 and 2, QCA.

QCDA (2009). National Curriculum, Internet Available: http: //curri clum.qcda.gov.uk/key-stages-1-and-2/Values-aims-and-purposes/ind ex.aspx

Shaheen, R (2010) Creativity and Education. Creative Education 2010. Vol.1, No.3, 166-169