North West Collaborative

C Change

C Change is based in the north west and led by St Bernard’s RC primary and nursery school in Ellesmere Port. Our Collaborative is made up of 11 amazing schools from across Cheshire, Wirral and Liverpool. It includes primaries, secondaries, early years, specialist and alternative provisions.

Through our work we will be exploring how creative pedagogies contribute to the experience of education for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. We are exploring the conditions needed to foster a culture of curiosity and creativity within and across schools, as well as how the pedagogies effectively cultivate creative
thinking across the curriculum. Across the collaborative we will be looking at strategies that support effective cultural and creative partnerships for schools, communities and young people.

Over the past three years we have been testing a range of innovative practices in teaching for creativity, with the explicit intention that our learning is shared to facilitate system-wide change.

We believe that creativity, community and culture are key to making a change in the lives of young people.

We are conducting research on the following lines of inquiry:

  • How do creative pedagogies contribute to the experience of education for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds?

  • What are the conditions needed to foster a culture of curiosity and creativity within and across schools?

  • What pedagogies effectively cultivate creative thinking across the curriculum, in particular for disadvantaged pupils?

  • What strategies support effective cultural and creative partnerships for schools, communities and young people?

C Change logo

The project has been set up to ensure that each school has a creativity champion who leads the work in their school. They are supported by a vertical slice creativity team, made up of staff, parents, children and members of the school community.

St Bernard’s RC Primary School applied to be the lead school for the Creativity Collaboratives for many reasons. Over the past eight years we have been developing our curriculum around the five creative habits developed by Bill Lucas and colleagues at the University of Winchester. We worked to build a curriculum that enables our children to become confident and capable learners, ready, willing and able to choose, design and pursue learning for themselves.

See below the HFCMAT habits of learning wheel. This is used to help promote, model and develop children's collaborative, inquisitive, persistent, imaginative and disciplined learning habits.

Creative Habits of Mind model
HFCMAT Habits of Learning Wheel

Final Year 3 report

Read the C Change year 3 report >> Here

Get in touch with C Change using the details below:

Website: cchange.hfcmat.com

Twitter: @CChangeNW

Email: creativity@stbernards.cheshire.sch.uk

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