University Creativity Celebrations!

An exciting finish to the whole project will be happening this Thursday. All the students, in their final year of uni, are coming together to celebrate the huge successes of the Creativity 3 module. We have invited the 8 children and staff who we worked with on the Raising Attainment in Literacy project. To share our success, we have made our own radio podcast celebrating the learning journey which both we and the year 9 students have gone through. We hope you enjoy our radio montage!

Click here for the university celebration podcast.

© Sophia Koiston, Oliver Hughes and Helen Goodall 2010

Final Wordle

Word cloud

Bibliography - Creativity Project 2010/2011

Bibliography 

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Barrs, M. And Cork, V. (2001) The Reader in the Writer: the links between the study of literature and writing development at Key Stage 2. London: Centre for Language in Primary Education.

Bearne, E. (2002) Making Progress in Writing. London: Routledge.

Beetham, H. (2008) Handbook of research on learning design and learning objects:

issues, applications and technologies. Information Science Reference: London.

Berk, L. E. and Winsler, A. (1995) Scaffolding children's learning: Vygotsky and early childhood education. Washington: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Black, P. and Wiliam, D. (1998) Inside the Black Box: raising standards through classroom assessment. London: nfer Nelson.

Carrington, B. and McPhee, A. (2008) ‘Boys’ ‘underachievement’ and the feminization of teaching’, Journal of Education for Teaching, 34 (2) pp. 109-120.

Cooper, S., Doonan, K. and Fawcett, N. (2011) Enterprising Technology: Using 4G Technology to Improve Literacy Skills [POSTER] Exhibited at Third Annual ESCalate Conference, Liverpool Hope University. 11 April 2011. A0.

Department for Education (2010a) Talk for Writing. Available at: http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/node/154523?uc%20=%20force_uj (Accessed: 13 October 2010).

Department for Education (2010b) Progression Papers. Available at: http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/search/primary/results/nav:45784 (Accessed: 15 April 2010).

Department for Education (2010f) Teaching Sequence for Writing. Available at: http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/node/154862 (Accessed: 25 October 2010)

Department for Education (2009) Developing Literacy in Initial Teacher Training. Available at: http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/node/186615 (Accessed: 25 October 2010)

Clarke, S. (2005) Formative Assessment in Action: weaving elements together. London: Hodder Education.

Department for Education (2008) Good Writers. Available at: http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/node/154857?uc=force_uj (Accessed: 20 December 2010).

DfES (2003) Excellence and Enjoyment: a Strategy for Primary Schools. DfES: London.

Dewey, J. (2011) The School and Society & The Child and the Curriculum. New York: ReadaClassic.com.

Fox, R., Medwell, J., Poulson, L. and Wray, D. (2002) Teaching Literacy Effectively in the Primary School. London: Routledge Falmer.

Hodson, P. and Jones, D. (2001) Teaching children to write the process approach to writing. London: David Fulton Publishers.

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Koiston, S., Goodall, H. and Hughes, O. (2010) Raising Attainment in Literacy [Online] Available at: http://raisingattainmentinliteracy.blogspot.com/ (Accessed: 13 September 2010).

Kolb, D. A. (1984) Experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Millard, E. (2005) ‘To enter the castle of fear: engendering children’s story writing from home to school at KS2’, Gender and Education, 17 (1) pp. 57-73.

Nagan, C. (1994) 'Immersion in Literacy' Education Resources Information Center [Online] Available at: http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_& ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED372365&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED372365 (Accessed: 13 October 2010).

National Literacy Trust (2009) Blogs and Social Networks Linked to Educational Benefits. Available at: http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/ (Accessed: 20 December 2010).

Nicholson, D. (2006) ‘Putting Literature at the Heart of Literacy’, Literacy, 40 (1), April, pp. 11-21.

Office for Standards in Education (2008) Ofsted Learning Outside the Classroom. Available at: http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Publications-and-research/Browse-all-by/Documents-by-type/Thematic-reports/Learning-outside-the-classroom. (Accessed: 27 October 2010).

Pant, I. and Baroudi, B. (2008) ‘The Project Management Education: The human skills imperative’ International Journal of Project Management, 26 (2), pp. 124-128 [Online]. Available at:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V9V-4P6MH10-1&_user=10&_coverDate=02%2F29%2F2008&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig= gateway &_origin=gateway&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1745449474&_ rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=70d595b731deb514d756fae970b6a141&searchtype=a (Accessed: 15 April 2011).

Palmer, S. (2006) The Complete Skeleton Book for Non-Fiction Text Types. Sutton-in-Ashfiel: Technology Teaching Systems 2001.

Piaget, J. and Inhelder, B. (2000) The Psychology of the Child. New York: Basic Books.

Reeve, J. (2009) 'Why Teachers Adopt a Controlling Motivating Style Toward Students and How They Can Become More Autonomy Supportive', Educational Psychologist, 44, Jul, pp. 159-175 Professional Development Collection [Online] DOI: 10.1080/00461520903028990 (Accessed: 5 April 2011).

Rijlaarsdam, G., van den Bergh, H. and Couzijn, M. (2005) Effective Learning and Teaching of Writing: A handbook of writing in education. New York: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Rowe, M. B. (1974) ‘Relation of wait-time and rewards to the development of language, logic and fate control’, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 11 (4), p. 292.

Taylor, B. M., Pressley, M., and Pearson, P. (1998) Research-Supported Characteristics of Teachers and Schools that Promote Reading Achievement. New York: Routledge.

Technology Entertainment Design (2006) Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity. Available at: http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html (Accessed: 14 October 2010).

Vanderlinde, R. and van Braak, J. (2010) ‘The Gap Between Educational Research and Practice: Views of teachers, school leaders, intermediaries and researchers’, British Educational Research Journal, 36 (2), pp. 299–316.

Vygotsky, L. (1978) 'Interaction between learning and development', Mind and Society, pp. 79-91. [Online]. Available at: www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky78.pdf

Wallace, B. and Brown, S. R. (2008) Genre Studies in the Writing Workshop. Available at: http://www.noycefdn.org/documents/ecrw/curriculum/GenreStudy PlanningGuide.pdf (Accessed: 10 April 2011).

© Sophia Koiston, Oliver Hughes and Helen Goodall 2010

Reflective Account of Creativity Project - 2010/2011

Reflective account of Creativity project 2010/2011:

Raising Attainment in Literacy

This critical reflection aims to analyse and justify the decisions made for raising attainment in literacy and the methods chosen to do this. Our project aimed to raise attainment literacy with a group of eight Year 9 pupils who were achieving levels less than would be expected for pupils of their age. As a group, we were asked to use our knowledge and understanding of primary education to motivate and engage this group of students. This reflection will consider five major themes that are embedded throughout the project. These themes are:

• Creativity
• Effective teaching of Literacy and Oracy
• Use of e-technologies
• Collaborative working
• Sustainability and Continuing Professional Development

Creativity

Adopting a creative approach to the planning and teaching of our intervention was felt necessary by the group in order to motivate children to engage in literacy. Creativity in schools has been said to be in decline (Robinson, 2007) therefore it was important to adopt a variety of strategies to ensure effective teaching and learning took place. Child led learning was embedded throughout all stages of the plan, teach, assess cycle (Vygotsky, 1978; Piaget and Inhelder, 2000; Kolb, 1984; Dewey, 2011) in order to focus on the needs, interests and abilities of all the pupils. 

 

Trips and visitors were used as part of our intervention to provide learning opportunities to stimulate and extend children’s learning, which Ofsted (2008) have also found to raise pupils’ attainment and achievement. The group felt that using trips and visitors in this way would generate excitement about the project and allow the children to have some autonomy in their learning (Reeve, 2009). These opportunities punctuated the learning journey with exciting and inspirational experiences set within the context of the learning, which it was hoped it would provide learners with the confidence to succeed (DfE, 2010). 

 

An additional aspect to our strive for a creative approach was our consideration of the learning environment (Nagan, 1994). It was felt necessary by the group to adopt a relaxed and informal way of working in order to remove some of the barriers to learning that these children may have had. This allowed the learning to be a truly social activity where the children were active participants rather than recipients to knowledge (Vygotsky,1978; Piaget and Inhelder, 2000).

Effective Teaching of Literacy and Oracy

Within the group we had a wealth of knowledge to access to ensure that our intervention provided real life links to pertinent theory. We tried to incorporate the following approaches into our plan, teach, assess cycle:

• Talk for Writing (DfE, 2010a);
• Purpose (DfE, 2010b; Palmer, 2006)
• Audience (DfE, 2010b; Palmer, 2006);
• Oracy (Fox et al., 2010; Nicholson, 2006; DfE, 2008)
• Immersion (Wallace and Brown, 2008);
• Process (Hodson and Jones, 2001);
• Genre (Badger and White, 2000).

The inter-relationship between the four modes (Dlitt, 2009; Barrs and Cork, 2001) of literacy was crucial to our approach. We wanted to ensure that the children saw the link between reading and writing, and speaking and listening. We felt it was important to base our practice on pertinent theory and therefore chose to adopt a way of working that scaffolded the learners on their journey to confidence in literacy, working from dependence on the teacher to independence (Bearne, 2002; UKLA, 2004). Capturing ideas and oral rehearsal was central to our work, as promoted by the Talk for Writing model (DCSF, 2009).

Formative assessment was used throughout the teaching sequence to inform the next steps in the children's learning (Black and Wiliam, 1998). We used extensive self assessment to ensure that all teaching was purposeful and pitched at the correct level; this ensured excellent progression was achieved (Pressley et al, 1998). Effective questioning (Clarke, 2005; How do they walk on hot sand?, no date) and talk partners (Rowe, 1974; Clarke, 2005) were strategies used to incorporate assessment for learning. We also tried to provide additional challenge by varying the approach to talk partners through differentiating the groupings (Clarke, 2005).

Use of e-technologies

The school was keen to develop their use of e-technologies in the curriculum; as such we incorporated multi-modal learning into our approach. Correspondingly, we as teachers used a blog to record our plans, thoughts and reflections. It was hoped that this would provide a model of good practice to the children (Miskin, 2010), in addition to being an innovative way of reflecting upon our own practice (National Literacy Trust, 2009; Cooper, Doonan and Fawcett, 2011). 

 

It was important to us that the children were not presented with reams of written texts, as this may have been daunting for children who were disengaged with literacy. This was achieved through the digital recording of thoughts and reflections using notebooks, dicta phones and cam-corders. The children explored software and hardware such as E-jay and podium to create their own radio programme. 

 

The final podcasts were uploaded to the school's Virtual Learning Environment which allows for access and feedback from the wider community.

Collaborative working

Collaboration in terms of our project took many forms; these will be discussed under the subheadings of working together, working with external agencies and individual experience.

• Working together to plan and teach an intervention on this scale brought with it challenges as well as celebrations. Being able to select our own working group ensured that we felt confident in our “professional learning community” (Vanderlinde and van Braak, 2010, p.1). We kept in regular contact by using our blog (http://raisingattainmentinliteracy.blogspot.com/) to ensure that we were really working collaboratively rather than merely alongside each other. 
   
• External agencies were by definition an integral part of our project. Working closely with the school to deliver the intervention brought new relationships to manage. We liaised with agencies to plan trips and to promote our project in the local press. These sometimes proved problematic due to different schedules and priorities and we had to develop existing skills to manage these situations, such as communication and negotiation. The skills that we developed are both useful and transferable; we hope to utilise these in future employment (Pant and Baroudi, 2008). 
   
• Our individual experiences and achievements enabled us to bring knowledge and understanding that was useful to our specific project. Two of our group are English Subject Specialists which meant that they could bring a greater depth of knowledge and approaches to current practice, allowing for highly effective planning and teaching (Fox, et al 2002). Furthermore, two of our group have completed additional training with the Teacher Development Agency on teaching children with Special Educational Needs; the skills learned here were especially useful when creating and teaching lessons for disengaged pupils as one of our group had experience working with excluded boys at a Special School in Sussex. One of our group is male which helped provide a positive male role model for the children in our group (Carrington and McPhee, 2008; Millard, 2005). Similarly, our collective experience teaching at primary schools around the county has achieved us with strategies that are useful for motivating children in ways that may differ from modern secondary school teaching.

Sustainability and Continuing Professional Development

Our original intentions for the project took into consideration the need for sustainability. Subsequently, we decided to use a blog to reflect upon our project; this has given us flexibility and means that our work can be constantly updated and adapted to suit the needs of the user. Additionally, the nature of blogging means that our work is open to peer review and feedback, providing us with our own level of formative assessment. 

 

Our brief for the project was to raise attainment in literacy. However it was initially hoped that our intervention may lead to the creation of a school radio station which would be led by the students. Presently, the school is unsure of the future of the station, however they are very enthusiastic about the benefits that producing the programmes have had on the children. They hope to build on the successes of the project when time allows. 

 

Due to the success of our project, we were invited by the university to contribute at the ESCalate Student Conference at Liverpool Hope University in April 2011. We applied to present a poster to both academics and fellow students and were successful in our application. The process of creating our contribution allowed for critical reflection on our project and the module as a whole. We were able to analyse the profound impact that being part of this module has had on us. Particularly in terms of the impact that creativity has in teacher education and our own continuing professional development. Moreover, our involvement in this module has led us to a desire to continue to incorporate a creative approach in our own classrooms in September. 

 

Conclusion

To summarise, our project has surpassed the expectations that all involved in the intervention had at the beginning. We have achieved sustainability and had a impact on practice at both a personal and a wider level through our publication at the conference. We have critically reflected upon and analysed our learning that has taken place during the module. Our end product remains professional, useful, accessible and user friendly to ourselves, the school and the wider community. 

 

Word Count: 1549

© Sophia Koiston, Oliver Hughes and Helen Goodall 2010

The Sketchbook

As part of the project the children kept a sketchbook which detailed their progress across the course of the intervention.  Here is a video of the sketchbook:

© Sophia Koiston, Oliver Hughes and Helen Goodall 2010

Evaluation and Sustainability

We have felt that this project has been extremely successful because we have raised the children’s attainment in literacy. We have achieved this through a creative and stimulating approach which engaged all the children from the outset. It became apparent that by removing the barriers to literacy, such as writing, and using multimodal means of learning, the children began to grow in confidence in their own abilities. Having a real audience and end product to aim for, the children found real purpose for their learning. Expectations of the children and their work were always at a high standard. Moreover, the process to which the children were working towards was always achievable, and subsequently focused their learning journey.

It was intended that the children would set up the school’s radio station in the forthcoming term, as experts. All the children expressed an avid interest in launching Diverse FM. However, we have recently heard that the head has decided to defer the setting up of the school radio station. JW and the children are still behind the project and we eagerly await to hear the progress from the school.

Having liaised with JW it is clear that the children have made excellent progress within literacy. JW has spoken to the children’s English teachers who said that the students have ‘increased in confidence in their contribution in terms of speaking and listening’. The feedback from JW is great to hear and that the project has had a profound effect on their continuing learning journey.

We are now looking forward to celebrating the success of the project at the University presentations on the 25^th May alongside our peers’ creativity projects. It will be great to see the children once again and to share with them our success. Although this is closure on the project for us, it is exciting to know that the children will help to launch the school radio station.

© Sophia Koiston, Oliver Hughes and Helen Goodall 2010

ESCalate Conference - April 2011

We were asked by the University to attend the ESCalate conference at Liverpool Hope University on Monday 11^th April to showcase our creativity project. Although the university had asked us to take part in the conference, we still had to apply to ESCalate for a place in the conference. For this we created an A0 poster that gave an outline to our project, as well as the progress and achievements that the students had made. On the Monday before the conference we heard back that we had been accepted and that we would be going to Liverpool to present our poster.

The conference focussed on enterprise within education and embedding employability in teacher education courses. Throughout the day we attended a number of sessions that were led by university lecturing staff, students and other professionals. They provided an interesting insight into their chosen fields and they left us with a number of things to think about such as:

• how different universities approach creativity
• how some teacher training institutions work with the community around them to enhance the courses they offer
• the use of enterprise alongside education, something that our Creativity project tries to tap into.

The main highlight of the day was a key note lecture by Dr Paul Redmond, head of Careers and Employability at Liverpool University, who spoke about ‘crunchonomics’ through a creative and informative platform.

During the lunch break there was time dedicated for the viewing of poster’s in the main atrium. It was interesting to see other professional’s projects and to gain an understanding of how differing creative approaches have had an impact upon education. The feedback we received from lecturing staff and students alike was extremely positive towards our poster and project as a whole. Since then we have received further praise from attendees at the conference who have commented on the blog.

By attending the event we found that it has highlighted that our university course has instilled us with the professionalism required within education. Additionally it has ensured coverage of the broad range of standards as set out by the Teaching Development Agency, putting us in good stead to enter the teaching profession. Producing and presenting at a conference gave us all great experience in the world of Academia. 

Here is a copy of the poster that we submitted to the conference. 

Please click here for a larger copy of our poster.

To find out more information about the Escalate Conference follow this link.  

© Sophia Koiston, Oliver Hughes and Helen Goodall 2010

Teacher Reflections on the Project.

At the end of the project JW gave us feedback about how she thought the children had progressed as a result of the intervention that we had taught at the school. JW said that the children's speaking and listening skills had improved over the course of the half term; they were more likely to put up their hands in lessons and ask questions – both skills we wanted to instil in the children at the start of the project. JW went on to mention that these characteristics had been displayed by the children in lessons outside of literacy as well as the subject at the heart of our project.

The children involved were writing more whereas previously they were often reluctant writers. A comparison of homework for one child showed a clear increase in the amount of writing completed, which suggests that the intervention had a positive effect in motivating children to write.

Self confidence was mooted by JW and parents of the pupils as one of the key areas of improvement for all the pupils in the group. Some pupils were reluctant to participate at the beginning of the study but were confidence speakers and listeners at the end of the programme.

JW anticipates that these transferable skills will help the children achieve better than the expected levels had the intervention not been carried out.

Overall, the intervention has been successful and the school is left with ideas and resources to help continue the radio station, with the help of the founding pupils. 

© Sophia Koiston, Oliver Hughes and Helen Goodall 2010

The Fantastic Finale!

An amazing and impressive finish to the whole project!

Today was an exciting, but also extremely nerve-racking, as guests were to include parents, grandparents, a governor, the Head and a university lecturer, who unfortunately was delayed in traffic and missed the event.

It was also very exciting to be able to show the children what they had achieved, as they had not heard the final podcast. We began to set up the venue, which was to be in the library, with JW’s help. The children arrived after school, all looking very nervous about the prospect of showcasing their work. B very kindly offered to open our project to the audience, and we rehearsed his informal speech. The photographer also arrived from the Bognor Observer, and took a photograph of Helen and J, working with the IWB; they also collected quotes from the children about how they were feeling about the Fantastic Finish. The children helped set up the chairs and programs, which seemed to help them calm their nerves, and JW brought the refreshments.

The Head was keen to speak to the three of us, and he was pleased to see the progress we had made with the children. The guests began to arrive, and the children began to show their anxiety, however, we had every confidence in them, and we were glad we had made video reflection of their learning to show the parents.

The whole presentation was very professional. We introduced B, who did a fantastic job, at explaining what the project had been about, something he would not have had the confidence to do at the beginning of the project. His Mother was very proud. We showcased the children’s final podcast, and although they were embarrassed to hear themselves, we could see how proud they were of what they had achieved. Whilst it was playing, we had a PowerPoint slideshow of all the photographs from the project, which encapsulated the whole process and enjoyment, both the children and us had had. We then showed the children’s video reflections, which was great, as it took the pressure off of them speaking in front of the audience, and meant they were a true reflection of their learning. 

To finish the presentation, we awarded the children with certificates and JW with flowers for all their efforts throughout the project. We then had the opportunity to speak with all the guests, and it became apparent the impact we had had on the children as a whole child. Parents spoke about how their children were more confident, not only with their school work but at home. One parent said how J was now talking about school more frequently at home, and it had improved her home/school relationship with him. Another child, who initially didn’t want to be a part of the project, had dramatically improved in his self confidence. By week two, he was thoroughly engaged and began to come out of his shell. His Mother also said that B had cancelled attending a Gifted and Talented workshop for the Fantastic Finish as he was so proud of his achievements.

On a personal note from all of us, about the parent teacher relationship, this event really highlighted the importance and impact we can have on a child if we have mutual support. We were surprised to see so many Dads at the presentation, which was not only lovely to see, but they were also fully engaged with the project.   

The powerpoint for our final celebration can be accessed by clicking here.

Here are the children's reflections on the project. 



To listen to the final podcast click here.

© Sophia Koiston, Oliver Hughes and Helen Goodall 2010

10th January - Preparation for the fantastic finale

On 10th January we went into school and continued preparations for the fantastic finale.  All invitations have been sent out and we were quite nervous about the celebration.  We videoed the children reflecting on the project and hope to show this at the presentation - it should help to alleviate the nerves of getting up and talking in front of people.  Final tweaks were made on the podcast - it really is fantastic.  We needed someone to introduce the project to the parents and thought of T.  It turns out that he can't come though so B steps up to the mark.  His confidence has grown so much over the course of the few months we've worked with them.

Fingers crossed it all goes well on Friday - and that the children  and guests turn up!

Here are some words from our university tutors in response to our email below:

Dear Creativity Team, Creativity Tutor and AAs,

We have some very exciting news about our creativity 3 project, as we have now finished recording the podcast to propose to The  School in January.

As you know, we have been working with eight Yr9 pupils to help raise their literacy attainment, through the pupils producing their own radio broadcast. Their finalised version includes: News, Weather, Sport, Comedy, Celebrity Gossip, Interviews, Soaps, songs and their own jingles. The three of us are currently finalising the podcast and editing the last few features.

We would like to invite you all to celebrate with the children for the Fantastic Finish. The Yr9s will be having a private gathering to share their work and prose that the school continue to make a live radio broadcasts. The aim is that the Yr9 pupils will then be able to become the radio experts and help run the radio station in the future!

The preliminary date for the celebration is Friday 14th January, 3pm, at The School. If there is anyone you feel we may have forgotten to invite please let us know :)

If you haven't seen our blog recently there a sneak preview of the podcast and many photos etc... The link is http://raisingattainmentinliteracy.blogspot.com/

Thank you,

Helen Goodall, Ollie Hughes and Sophia Koiston.

Dear All

Thank you for your invitation. By the way, the blog is superb - a truly digitally literate, multimodal experience!

Kind Regards

Carole

Great - in my diary, keep me posted. Do we need to do certificates for the children? if so, please can you send list of names and exact name of project (Diverse FM?)

D

From: D

How exciting and well done! I'll see if I think I might make it nearer the time if that's okay!

C

© Sophia Koiston, Oliver Hughes and Helen Goodall 2010

Resources, lesson plans and more

Lesson Plan 1             
Lesson Plan 2             
Lesson Plan 3             
Lesson Plan 4             
Lesson Plan 5 and 6    






Lesson 1 Powerpoint
Lesson 2 Powerpoint
Lesson 3 Powerpoint
Lesson 4 Powerpoint
Lesson 5 and 6 Powerpoint

Genre clips:

Advert 1
Advert 2
Comedy 1
Interview 1
Interview 2
Jingles
News 1
News 2
Real radio jingles
Sport 1
Sport 2

© Sophia Koiston, Oliver Hughes and Helen Goodall 2010