The CREATIVE NETWORK

Search for new Schools of Creativity

2009-02-19T00:12:00.005Z

The following text is taken from the Creative Partnerships website. If any of you are interested in applying to become a School of Creativity, we would be more than happy to help you complete the relevant paperwork:

"If you are a creative school that wants to contribute to developing creative learning and cutting edge learning practice, read on. Creative Partnerships is looking for 30 new schools to share a £1.4million fund to become ‘Schools of Creativity’.

What is it?
Creative schools are being sought by Creative Partnerships to join a two-year project to raise educational standards and develop in students the skills that employers say they need such as the ability to question, make connections, innovate, problem solve and reflect critically. Schools that secure funding to become ‘Schools of Creativity’ will lead school networks and help to shape policy and practice throughout Creative Partnerships.

Creative Partnerships, the Government's flagship creativity programme for schools has already produced real results. Research findings show that schools that work with Creative Partnerships improve their GCSE results faster and seven out of 10 secondary head teachers say Creative Partnerships improves pupil behaviour in their schools.

‘Schools of Creativity’ will develop and evaluate cutting edge programmes so that the benefits of creative learning can be shared with other schools. ‘Schools of Creativity’ will lead a local school network of between four and ten schools to promote and share creative learning in their area and will form a national network to develop and promote creative learning for schools across England.

Who can apply?
Any maintained school in England can apply - as long as they will not be involved in another Creative Partnerships programme from September 2009.

The newly selected schools will join 30 other ‘Schools of Creativity’ that were selected in 2008 from those that already work with Creative Partnerships.

What is CP looking for?
Paul Collard, National Director of Creative Partnerships, said: "We are looking for schools that put creativity at the centre of the student learning. The schools that join the programme will share their unique creative approach so that other schools can learn from their experience. Schools of Creativity will also help Creative Partnerships to shape national policies and good practice.

How does the funding work?
Each school selected from this round will receive £20,000 each year, for two years and a funded education consultant to develop and promote creative learning. Schools will be expected to contribute £5,000 a year to the scheme. ‘Schools of Creativity’ will also receive 15 days support per year of a dedicated creative agent to support partnership building with creative professionals.

The schools selected from this round will join 30 other ‘Schools of Creativity’, selected from last year’s round of recruitment. Creative Partnerships is contributing £3.45 million to the ‘Schools of Creativity’ programme that will run for three years (2008 – 2011).

When is the deadline and when will schools be announced?
Deadline for submissions is the 6th March 2009. Schools will be selected by a national selection panel, comprising of members of Creative Partnerships and independent education consultants. Successful schools will be announced in early July."

Full information in documents below.

Schools of Creativity Prospectus (106 KB)
Schools of Creativity Guidance and Descriptors 2009 (128 KB)
Schools of Creativity application form 2009 (128 KB)
Schools of Creativity FAQs 2009 (66 KB)

Art GCSE Mock Pictures from Eltham Hill

2008-12-29T21:03:00.014Z

Hi,

We had two themes: Portraits and Masks, so we covered 2D and 3D. We are very pleased with the outcomes, which are imaginative and competent. I'll be posting some photographic coursework in January, based on ideas from Cindy Sherman.

Yours

Gary

Merry Christmas Everyone!

2008-12-24T13:02:00.004Z

Trafalgar Square Joiner, originally uploaded by fotologic.

Wishing you a very merry Christmas and a highly creative New Year from everyone at Thomas Tallis School.

Hello from Eltham Hill

2008-12-20T18:28:00.004Z

Hi everyone,
If all goes to plan I'll be posting pics of recent GCSE Photography work and some of our GCSE mock exam art soon.
Yours
Gary
Eltham Hill Art Department

Shine Week 2009

2008-12-09T18:04:00.004Z

If you haven't yet registered for this year's national Shine Week, now's as good a time to do it as any. Last year, Tallis was visited by Gordon Brown and Ed Balls and we enjoyed a massive variety of activities designed to showcase the talents of our students. It was great fun and a good excuse to be a little anarchic. On one day we had two members of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra wandering around school, in and out of lessons, playing very loud brass instruments without any warning. We're looking forward to a lot more of that kind of thing this year.

New Enquiry Schools

2008-12-09T17:26:00.003Z

I received an email today from Rebecca Branch at A New Direction (the new name for the London office of Creative Partnerships). I had asked her if there would be any further opportunities for our partner schools to get involved in the national C P programme. This is her response:

There will be another round of applications for the Enquiry School
programme beginning around Easter next year for a September 09 start.
We have to expand to more boroughs so are currently in the process of
working out how many places there will be for Greenwich schools but I
can certainly let you know and it'd be great if you could flag it with
them as appropriate.

The other thing that we are hoping to develop in the new year (this is
as A New Direction outside the CP programme) is a kind of 'membership'
scheme - this isn't quite the right word, but the kind of thing we're
looking at is providing a mechanism to support and encourage schools to
share practice, work together on a shared/ common interest area of
research, come to a couple of events etc - do you get the idea? I've
got to work it up a bit yet...again, we can certainly feed these schools
into that.

Hope this helps.

With best wishes

Rebecca

This is encouraging news and means that some, if not all, of our partner schools will have a chance of becoming involved in Creative Partnerships. As I made clear at the meeting recently, I am more than happy to support any of you who wish to make an application and I will continue to lobby C P to offer you the chance. If you do want to get involved, it might be a good idea to start thinking about this and finding out more about Enquiry Schools as soon as possible. Let me know if you need me to help you find the necessary information. In addition, I think we should all register our interest in the "membership" scheme Rebecca mentions. Sounds like it will also be a way for us to share best practice and attarct useful interest in our shared commitment to creative learning.

Creative Communities Day Video

2008-12-04T16:00:00.002Z

Go! Animate

2008-12-02T21:38:00.006Z

A colleague has just alerted me to the Go! Animate website which allows anyone to create cartoon style animations in just a few clicks of the mouse. I thought I'd have a go at creating one based on our recent meeting and managed this in just 20 minutes. I had a couple of conversations on the day about how exciting animation can be with young people. Maybe this could be a resource we all have a go at using in the classroom so that we can share our experiences here? It's something that could be done on an interactive whiteboard with a small group or in the computer suite with everyone making their own films. Tell me what you think.

Creative Community Meeting

2008-12-01T19:25:00.003Z

Thanks to everyone who attended the Creative Community meeting today at Devonport House. It was really refreshing to work alongside colleagues from different schools who are all interested in promoting creativity and keen to share ideas about how best to do this. I will make sure that a contingent from Tallis visits you in your schools again soon to consult with you in a bit more detail about your aspirations for this year. Please feel free to use this blog as a place to share anxieties, links to online resources, requests for help, information and anything else you think is appropriate so that we can strengthen our creative community. I would like to organise another meeting shortly after Christmas so ideas about which days might be good on a postcard please.

Check back soon to see the final version of Eelyn's film of the day.

2008-12-01T17:29:00.004Z

Hi. Great to meet you all at the Creative Communities Day. Here's a good link for the MPC on YouTube. This guy has some great ideas once you get past his haircut speech, also he seems to be quite prolific. Cheers Nick

Sir Ken Robinson at the RSA

2008-11-24T18:36:00.003Z

In a recent lecture at the Royal Society of Arts, Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson asks how do we make change happen in education and how do we make it last? He argues that unless we address underlying cultures and attitudes, change is likely to be superficial and temporary, but to do this we need to engage with organisational dynamics and with the aspirations and motivations of the individuals who work within those organisations.

This is a provocative lecture with some challenging thoughts about changing paradigms.

Back from India

2008-11-24T09:57:00.005Z

Hi Everyone

I've just got back from India, where our band (The Bollywood Brass Band) played for the last show at India Fashion week in Delhi. I stayed on and visited Varanassi where I had some instruction on how to play a Sarengi, a bowed instrument with many sympathetic strings. I then went up to the mountains, McLeod Ganj, where the Dali Lama Lives in India to visit an old friend. This picture is of a Gadi Shepherd who lives there. I'm looking forward to working on future Sound & Vision projects and meeting those of you I've not met yet, Cheers Nick.

Welcome

2008-11-24T09:06:00.001Z

Welcome to the new blog for the Thomas Tallis Creative Network. This is a place where partners in the Thomas Tallis School specialist arts college community can share ideas, seek guidance and promote creative solutions. Hopefully, it will enable us to stay in touch and benefit from each other's innovations.