Learning & Development: Creativity - At a stroke

Creativity lies at the heart of our nursery school curriculum, a focus we believe helps children to become confident learners and original thinkers. It is, in our view, the best approach to ensure that all children have the chance to succeed, excel, grow in confidence and develop and extend life skills and life choices.

Our 60-place school shares a site with a primary school and children's centre, and together we provide an integrated hub of family support for the community of Bucknall. Although in an area with high levels of unemployment and social deprivation, we feel we are a harmonious, inclusive setting, able to inspire our children and families to 'make a difference'.

Our own inspiration for this creative approach comes from various sources. I was struck by a comment by actor Alan Alda, who said, 'The "creative" is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself.'

My own seven-year-old son Evan inspired my thinking when talking about creativity. He said, 'You know, mummy, you can just imagine and think about things that might be different - but it's OK!'

That, I decided, was what I wanted for all the children in our school: to feel OK about wanting to do something different, say something different or think in a different way. To me, that is the way we want our children to grow - with the confidence to think 'out of the box', to be original and unique.

The biggest influence on our thinking was the pre-schools of Reggio Emilia, Italy, which I had visited before becoming head teacher at Kingsland and which all my staff have now seen at first hand.

We wanted to deliver a curriculum with an emphasis on the learning journey and the process, rather than the product or the performance. Our aim was to provide open-ended and inspirational experiences that would capture the children's imaginations and encourage 'creative thinking'.

Clearly, what we wanted to avoid was a rigid, compartmentalised curriculum that constrained the limits of children's learning, and here we were reminded of author Beatrix Potter, who said, 'Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.'

Influencing and bolstering our practice over the past three years has been the Creative Partnerships scheme, a Government initiative aimed at developing schoolchildren's potential, ambition, creativity and imagination.

The aim of our involvement was to raise children's language and communication skills, and through the project, staff and children have been able to work with a series of creative artists and non-artists, including dancers and Brazilian drummers.

This year we achieved Change School status. Now we are on a journey of self-review and reflection in order to plan the next steps of our creative adventure. The development framework will provide the structure to negotiate future projects to meet the needs of our young learners and to further develop staff knowledge and understanding.

What does our approach look like?

Our nursery is divided into four key areas:

- Creative Workshop - principally, paint and malleable materials

- Sensory and Imagination - includes role play, puppets and explorations of light and sound

- Outdoor Learning - includes sand pit, vegetable patch, tyre play, sensory pathway and wooden exploratory area. There will soon be a communication shelter in the shape of a bottle kiln, as a reflection of our cultural heritage in Stoke-on-Trent, and provision of creative approaches to enhancing speaking and listening skills

- Discovery - includes a real workbench and tools, science explorations and investigations, water and sand play and design/making.

A member of staff is allocated to each of the four areas for a week, while the main focus for other staff members is the care and learning of their key children.

Children access freely both the indoor and outdoor environments and choose resources independently.

Throughout the day, children and adults are engaged in shared tasks, some outwardly creative - such as dancing, painting, sculpting, designing, building, digital imagery, drama, storytelling and puppetry - others not. All, however, will be promoting creative thinking and learning, language and communication skills.

We look for the creative in everything that we do. Bubbles or foam or ice or colouring might be added to the water tray to inspire children's thinking, for from there can flow problem-solving, decision-making and learning that spans the whole EYFS curriculum.

Take, for example, our vegetable plot. Staff could easily have cordoned off an area for it, but how much better to leave the creative thinking to the children, who then had to decide where to put the plot, how to measure it and what to plant.

Staff meet at the end of each day to share their reflections and assessments and to plan future learning based on the children's interests.

Taking a creative approach does bring huge benefits to the children. Value-added results from our nursery baseline on entry and exit scores show that children have made excellent progress, primarily in personal, social and emotional development, while there are also significant improvements in their intellectual and linguistic abilities.

What makes it work?

Many factors combine to make our approach a success. These are:

Time Our children always have all the time that they want and need to think, plan and work together on projects that interest them.

Flexibility Both our planning and the flow of the day are flexible.

Resources Where possible, we provide real tools and equipment. Using real hammers on the workbench can deepen children's experience, while using artists' brushes in our painting area raises the quality of work that the children can achieve. Rotating staff around the four areas of the nursery also gives them a greater understanding of the potential for learning within each piece of equipment.

Accurate assessment Staff have a good and shared understanding of each child's stage of development and how to take their learning forward. Included in that is an awareness of children's learning styles and how to respond to them. For example, in response to boys' learning needs, we invited a male artist to lead clay workshops, wood-working activities and explorations of light, wind and sound (and making 'telephones') using drain pipes.

Togetherness As well as excellent teamwork, having strong relationships between staff and children diffuses behaviour problems, leaving the children willing and able to learn. Adults and children also assess projects together, deciding jointly what they already know, what they would like to find out and how to take a project forward.

Skills Our staff have a wide range of skills and, through Creative Partnerships, we can employ experts to enhance the curriculum and skills being developed. The scheme has been a two-way learning process for us as educationalists and for the artists and non-artists.

Parents The children's families understand our approach, which is explained to them through our induction process, workshops and visits, and they are supportive in what we are trying to achieve.

Commitment Our team is committed to community cohesion and want the best for all our families. They have high expectations of themselves and are committed to raising standards through self-evaluation. And they are committed to our creative approach, having seen best practice at first hand both in Italy and in the UK.

We are always striving to improve our own provision and are committed to sharing good practice through our open-door policy and our involvement with the Nursery Heads Group in Stoke-on-Trent and a local Reggio Network Group. As our school motto says, 'Every step counts'.

OUTSTANDING PRACTICE

Stoke-on-Trent's seven nursery schools have all achieved 'outstanding' Ofsted reports.

The seven outstanding nursery schools are:

- Kingsland Nursery School, kingslandnurs@sgfl.org.uk
- Bentilee Nursery School, bentilee@sgfl.org.uk
- Burnwood Nursery School, burnwoodnurs@sgfl.org.uk
- Grange Nursery School, grangenurs@sgfl.org.uk
- Northwood and Broom, nbnurs@sgfl.org.uk
- Thomas Boughey Nursery School, thomasboughey@sgfl.org.uk
- Westfield Nursery School, westfield@sgfl.org.uk

A conference, entitled 'Quality in Action - A Celebration of Stoke-on-Trent's Outstanding Nursery Schools', will be held on 6 November at Willfield Conference Centre, Bentilee. For information and to book a place, call Julie Brookes at Bentilee Nursery School, tel: 01782 235065 or e-mail: bentilee@sgfl.org.uk.

LINKS TO EYFS GUIDANCE

- PR 2.3. Supporting Learning

- EE 3.1 Observation, Planning and Assessment

- EE 3.3 The Learning Environment

- L&D 4.1 Play and Exploration

- L&D 4.2 Active Learning

- L&D 4.3 Creativity and Critical Thinking

- L&D 4.4 Areas of Learning and Development: Personal Social and Emotional Development and Communication, Language and Literacy

MORE INFORMATION

- Creative Partnerships: www.creative-partnerships.com

- Change School status: www.creative-partnerships.com/cs.