ERW Curriculum Team 14/1/2021

Creativity/Creadigrwydd

In December the Curriculum and Assessment (Wales) Bill Committee Stage 1 Report was published by the Welsh Assembly Government. And as you reached over for your Quality Street or After Eight Mints with one hand I’m sure the other was holding the document. The report itself contains over 325 pages which was enough to keep me entertained from Boxing Day to my wife’s 50^th Birthday on New Year’s Eve which was celebrated this year in wind swept Pontarddulais after our planned visit to New York was put on hold until her 51^st!! One of the most interesting things in the report to me was Recommendation 5. Which noted “That the Welsh Government give further consideration to participating in future cycles of the Creativity Thinking element of PISA, in light of the clear read across between it and the new curriculum’s approach.

What is the role of creative thinking in education?

A fundamental role of education is to equip students with the competences they need – and will need – in order to succeed in society. Creative thinking is a necessary competence for today’s young people to develop. It can help them adapt to a constantly and rapidly changing world, and one that demands flexible workers equipped with ‘21st century’ skills that go beyond core literacy and numeracy. After all, children today will likely be employed in sectors or roles that do not yet exist, using new technologies to solve novel problems. Educating for creative thinking can help young people to adapt to develop the capacities to undertake work that cannot easily be replicated by machines and address increasingly complex local and global challenges with out-of-the-box solutions.

Developing Creativity within ERW Schools

With the emphasis being placed in the new curriculum upon developing creativity as one of the integral skills which underpin the four purposes, members of the ERW curriculum team have been working on a series of training workshops on creativity. The aim of the workshops was to develop a range of teaching and learning ideas which could be implemented within the classroom. The workshops were based upon evidence centred design and a great deal of research had been conducted in order to combine the work conducted by PISA and the OECD with the demands of the new curriculum for Wales.

The first cohort to attend the workshops digitally through Teams was Ysgol Caer Elen. The series of training workshops focused on developing a whole school approach towards creativity and placing it within the context of their preparations for curriculum and as a foundation on which to build their local curriculum. As a 3 to 18 school all staff and members attended the facilitated workshop enabling them to think about developing a holistic approach towards implementing creativity throughout the school.