Report – Creative Curriculum: Lost or Not?

Posted on: Friday 08 July 2016 1:25am by Zarin Virji

The session focused on the indifference of British education policy towards non-core subjects such as art, music and language in the current curriculum

Takeaways

• Global education experts agree that creativity is the most important 21^st century skill
• Knowledge is freely available at the speed of our connection. The curriculum must reflect this reality, ensuring that creativity is injected into all subjects, particularly at the primary level
• Children need to be asked the right questions and they must feel safe even if they fail in their endeavour

Detail

Justin Cooke, Chairman, Big Clever Learning, shared his enthusiasm for children’s application of knowledge in being creative and making new products. His product, Digital Theatre, has attracted three million subscribers.

Joshua Davidson, Co-Founder and MD, Wonky Star, talked about the findings of a survey of 1,000 parents of children in the age group 5-10 years. 85% of the parents valued more time to be creative with their children. However schools are focused on the learning of facts and skills due to increased testing. Initially he faced difficulties in monetising his digital learning tool, ‘The Night Zookeeper’, as it does not provide instant gratification for children and parents do not have enough time to spend with children. This challenge led him to develop this resource for schools.

Matt Howarth, MD, Puppetman Productions, lamented the fact that teachers, parents and MPs believe that art is not a subject to be pursued as a career. Evidence suggests otherwise as art/design is required in every industry – cars, housing, clothes. The computer gaming industry has contributed £1.4 billion to the UK GDP (2013). The cost of commercial software is prohibitive but today software such as Inkscape, GIMP and Blender is freely available.

Chris Mould, Owner, Chris Mould Ink, shared his frustration about creativity being side-lined in schools due to the difficulty of measurement. His interaction with students has convinced him that the curriculum must be redesigned and creativity must be integrated in all subjects.