Through our Legacy Phase journey the Penryn Creativity Collaborative wants to build opportunities to support sustainability for teaching for creativity beyond the legacy phase. We want to foster opportunities to develop teachers, leaders and wider partnerships, supporting others to grow their knowledge and understanding of teaching for creativity. As we began to develop our toolkit resources from the pilot phase, we continued to reflect on what others need to 'know more' and how our journey can be best shared with others. We also wanted to develop the valuable partnerships we had developed through the pilot phase and nurture these connections to flourish.
On 28th March, at the Market Hall in Plymouth, CCE facilitated a 'Leading for Creative Thinking' SW roundtable discussion as an opportunity to share ideas and insights and explore avenues for driving this initiative forward together, in the South-West. CCE partnered with the Chartered College of Teaching, Penryn College as part of the Penryn Creativity Collaborative and Gary Futcher from Real Ideas for the event which ensured a range of opportunities and experiences could be shared. Leading for Creative Thinking began with the release of Creative Thinking in Schools: A Leadership Playbook, closely followed by the website, which they always intended to develop with the profession and wider partners. CCE coalesced school, system, industry and organisational leaders in London, in October 2024 and as a result are now hosting regional roundtables across the United Kingdom. Their ambition for these roundtables is to catalyse regional ecosystems of leaders, connect leaders of creative thinking, map the leaders and activities taking place across the UK and produce a state of the nation style report. CCE believe that by sharing quality research and resources we can support others to 'try things out' and give others permission 'to give it a go'.
‘It's about seeing, thinking and doing things differently in order to improve the life chances of all students.’ From Stoll, L. and Temperley, J. (2009) Creative leadership: a challenge of our times, School Leadership and Management, 29 (1): 63-76.
Sarah Childs (AHT, Penryn College) asked colleagues to consider before the roundtable 'What does ROOTED and LASTING look like', asking attendees to think about their local eco-system and how they foster networks and partnerships. The Penryn Creativity Collaborative (PCC), has developed a local eco-system demonstrating how a partnership of schools, working with university researchers, local industry and cultural partners can create a learning community exploring how teaching for creativity can better prepare young people for a future workforce.
We shared how in Year 1, PCC was ROOTED in our previous experience of co-creating curriculum with industry partners, and started by questioning, challenging and exploring, listening deeply to students, teachers, leaders and partners in their local community alongside our research partners at UOE (University of Exeter).
'Creativity is needed to see things from multiple perspectives, and in order to be able to adapt' (Industry Partner)
In Year 2, PCC continually sharing knowledge and expertise supported teachers to develop their own practice including more opportunities for problem-solving and real-world learning in the classroom. We nurtured teacher development through our Action Research programme mentored by Professor Kerry Chappell and Ursula Crickmay from UOE.
‘Making the time and space for creativity in the classroom is vital if we want to equip teenagers with the kinds of skills that they so clearly need for the future." (Secondary school teacher)
And in Year 3, LASTING collaborative working and partnerships ensured a sustainability for the future of PCC, embedding and growing classroom practice into wider systemic change including school improvement plans and wider national dissemination.
‘By presenting a roadmap for embedding creativity in education, the PCC sets a course for educators, policymakers and researchers who aspire to create classrooms and school communities where creativity thrives’ (Dr Mathilda Joubert, The University of Western Australia)