Our grant of £49,250 to the Barbican Centre Trust will fund an exciting action-research project aimed at developing creative teaching practices in London schools over the 2022-23 academic year. The project will bring together teachers and artists to rethink how the national curriculum is taught, using the principles of curiosity, creativity and compassion as the starting point for lesson developments. This shift in focus will help pupils to develop problem solving and creative thinking skills.
The project will work in two schools: City of London Academy Highgate Hill, a relatively new secondary school in Islington; and Phoenix Primary School, a specialist school for learners with autism. 650 pupils across both partner schools will take part in creative workshops with visiting artists, and four classes per school will work with the project more intensively, receiving at least one special creatively-designed lesson each term. Through these classes new approaches will hopefully be developed and tested which can then be replicated in schools across London and beyond.