Curious Minds

Creative Partnerships

Curious Minds delivers the Creative Partnerships programme across Lancashire, Blackburn with Darwen, Blackpool, Merseyside, Halton and West Cheshire working with schools and Creative Professionals to develop the skills of young people.

Creative Partnerships starts from the belief that teaching is fundamentally a creative profession and that teachers are well accustomed to finding creative solutions to complex challenges. By pairing the complementary skills of creative practitioners and teachers, Creative Partnerships helps to liberate the creativity of everyone involved, so that fresh and engaging approaches to teaching and learning are developed through collaborative processes. 

• it starts with the school improvement plan linking programme development closely with priorities identified by the school
• it makes time for proper in-depth planning to ensure programmes are relevant and based on the needs of the school and its pupils
• it facilitates processes where young people, teachers and practitioners can work together as co-constructors of learning
• it brokers and supports long-term relationships between young people, teachers and creative practitioners
• it supports in-depth evaluation and reflection, leading to sustainable and embedded practice

What this approach looks like in schools in the form of projects varies greatly, as the programmes and the projects within them are designed to be individual responses to the needs of each school. The key defining characteristic of project activity is the collaborative partnership between creative professionals, classroom staff and young people and the ways in which this partnership helps to bring the curriculum to life, providing new ways for learners to engage with subjects and to develop increased motivation for learning. Creative Partnerships projects allow time for in-depth planning, co-delivery and reflection.

 

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The Enquiry Schools programme works with schools over a period of one year, to explore how creative teaching and learning can enhance their practice. Enquiry Schools decide on a specific focus for their programme in relation to the broader needs of the school.  

The Change Schools programme builds on Creative Partnerships current practice to bring about sustainable change in approaches to teaching and learning. Schools recruited to the programme have demonstrated a commitment to putting creativity at the heart of their improvement plans and to educating children and young people for a creative future.

Schools of Creativity are at the cutting edge of creative learning, engaging in an intensive, long-term programme. Schools of Creativity lead local and national school networks and help to shape policy and practice throughout Creative Partnerships.

Creative Practitioners and Organisations

Long-term relationships between creative practitioners and schools lie at the heart of the Creative Partnerships process; Curious Minds works with over 150 creative practitioners and organisations. Read more...

Creative Agents

Each Creative Partnerships school has their own Creative Agent. Creative Agents are creative professionals and project managers who have a robust knowledge of creativity, culture and education