Creativity Across the Curriculum

The Brief

Hillcrest School obtained a Specialist Schools Designation as a Centre for the Performing Arts and engaged Bamboozle as a partner in its two-year culture-change programme. The school wanted to take a more creative approach to delivering its whole curriculum across all ages and cohorts.

The Project

The project included a mixture of CPD for staff and drama-based experiences for students. Bamboozle visited Hillcrest at regular intervals throughout the two year programme to provide:

• Classroom-based CPD – workshops with students and staff followed by analysis and discussion of sessions with the staff team.
• Whole-school INSET days – sharing the work with the whole school and offering training in the Bamboozle Approach, practical demonstrations, discussion and analysis.
• Large-scale residencies – two week-long immersive and interactive theatrical experiences where groups of students had the opportunity to shape their own adventure – the residencies also provided many opportunities for staff to assess learning outcomes which far exceeded their expectations.
• Mini-residencies – members of staff worked with Bamboozle to create smaller scale residency experiences for their teaching groups.
• Theatre productions – we had one day each year at the Grove Theatre in Dunstable – every teaching group in the school created their own scene from a story, the scenes were put together and then performed for a public audience at The Grove.

Outcomes

“The approaches used have enabled me to deliver a more creative & exciting curriculum for pupils. I have seen enhanced engagement & some really great work as a result of creative sessions.” Class Teacher, Hillcrest School.

“For our students to perform on stage was a huge achievement, being included in a “whole” school performance, performing with confidence was wonderful to be a part of.” Class Teacher, Hillcrest School.

“Fully inclusive – all students willingly took part with confidence – huge achievement for our students – fully engaged with Bamboozle staff”. Teaching Assistant, Hillcrest School.

The senior management team felt that Bamboozle’s input into Hillcrest’s two year programme brought about a shift in the teaching and learning culture of the school. As the project gained momentum – particularly in its second year – more and more teachers got involved, signed up for the classroom sessions and began their own explorations. The residency experiences had a major impact – many staff commented on significant achievements that had been made by students participating in full-scale residencies – these included, complete buy-in and engagement, specific targets being met, leadership, proactive participation, observation, co-operation, team work, focussing on the task in hand, long periods of concentration and inclusivity.