In the tenth of a series of articles looking at the work of Creative Partnerships, Sheila McGregor explains how a national action research programme (CARA) has helped schools start to explore creative learning and profiles some of the projects.
?It?s a race against time?, teachers often say about schools. From the moment the bell rings at the beginning of the school day, the pressure to get through curriculum topics, complete paperwork and prepare and mark pupils? work leaves little time for thinking and planning. What?s more, the INSET training available to teachers is generally geared towards internal management issues or implementation of the latest government initiative. It rarely looks at how teachers can extend their personal repertoire, think more analytically about what they do, and observe the impact of different experiences and teaching approaches on their pupils.
The fundamental aim of Creative Partnerships is to develop young people?s creative capacities by enabling schools to work in a long-term and genuinely reciprocal relationship with external partners who can bring something new to the teaching and learning process. Beyond question, these collaborations have had a considerable impact on those who have taken part, not least because Creative Partnerships has provided the time, funding and practical support to encourage careful planning and reflection. But how can reflective collaboration of this kind become the norm in British schools? How can practitioners be supported to tease out their hunches and insights about what has worked (or hasn?t worked) and articulate this for the benefit of a wider audience? And how can the opportunity to participate in ?action research? be extended to schools outside Creative Partnerships, in order to acknowledge the good work that is taking place elsewhere and draw attention to the benefits of engendering a more reflective ethos within the education system?
How did CARA work?
In the autumn of 2004, Creative Partnerships commissioned the Leeds-based organisation CAPEUK to run a programme of Creative Action Research Awards (CARA) for schools with no previous experience of Creative Partnerships. With its long track record of exploring creative processes in education, CAPE was well placed to design a framework for CARA that made realistic demands of the participants while also providing much needed support.
The awards were open to any English state school or early-years setting. Of the 280 applicants, over 140 were offered an award of £4,500 each to explore their chosen research question, in some instances, working collaboratively with other schools. Each partnership also worked with a separately funded ?mentor? who could act as a sounding-board and support the research process. Introductory workshops for teachers and creative practitioners explored the principles of action research and offered practical guidance in how to gather evidence of change in pupils? motivation, behaviour and aptitudes. The only formal requirement was that each partnership should complete an end-of-project report ? not (necessarily) a ?good news? story, but an honest account of the ideas, difficulties and tensions which emerged during the project. As CAPE points out, ?It?s often only when you explain an idea or a process to someone else that ideas become clear in your own mind.?
Enthusiasm
The resulting programme encompassed a wide range of research questions, types of school, age groups, geographical locations and creative disciplines, including architecture, philosophy, science, literature, drama, dance, music, broadcasting, theatre, film-making and the visual arts.
From the evidence so far, it is clear that CARA awards have brokered partnerships which will continue to flourish well beyond the lifetime of individual projects and that most participants (more than 90%) would welcome the opportunity to apply for a second round of funding. The long-term impact of the scheme is perhaps harder to predict. But, if the enthusiasm of those who took part in the first round is anything to go by, it?s an approach to professional development that deserves to be more widely adopted.