Milford Haven School Improvement Group – Building a Creative Curriculum

With the curriculum in Wales undergoing transformational reform, learning and experiences within the expressive arts have been elevated to having equal value with traditional ​‘core’ subjects, such as Maths or English. With the expectation that teaching of arts will become embedded across all aspects of our curriculum, teachers from across Milford Haven identified their need for professional development in this area – many feeling deskilled, following years of an increasingly narrowing curriculum.

In equal partnership with the Pembrokeshire Music Service (PMS), we want to build a professional learning arts legacy in our schools where highly trained staff provide on-going professional learning for their colleagues to secure the future of arts teaching in our town of Milford Haven. Nearly 100 teachers across six schools, grouped according to confidence and prior knowledge/​skills/​experience, engage in an enquiry cycle in small cross-cluster groups. They gather for a mentor group session, meeting new knowledge/​developing skills with Sarah, PMS Lead. They then go on to test this in their classrooms, with Sarah and her team checking-in with a 1:1 coaching session. They then complete the cycle through a social model of reflection, sharing outcomes and learning from their practice back in their mentor group, before beginning the meet-test-share process once again, building upon their previous knowledge and experiences.

Sarah is an inspirational practitioner who creates a safe and trusting professional learning environment, where teachers feel relaxed and supported to overcome inhibitions and take personal risks alongside colleagues.

Confidence to teach music has increased, meaning greater opportunities for learners across Milford Haven. Teachers themselves feel far more engaged in teaching music (i.e. body percussion, tuned and non-tuned percussion). They notice and have valued the positive impact this is having on learner engagement and wellbeing and are thus further motivated to include musical experiences on a regular basis. Many teachers are now engaging in exploration and composition with their learners, across the curriculum – something, they have identified, that they were not previously doing.

Teachers have relished the opportunity to work with and learn from colleagues across the cluster in mentor sessions, noting these relationships have also encouraged them to try new things in PL sessions as well as back in their own classrooms. This ​‘in it together’ feel has encouraged teachers to face fears of the ​‘chaos’ that they worried would ensue when delivering a music session.

Coaching sessions have enabled teachers to receive bespoke support from the PMS team, ranging from refining teacher skills and developing their knowledge and understanding, to identifying opportunities in their curriculum plans to embed music, with specific consideration of learner interests and needs.

Leaders from each school and the PMS form the project research and evaluation group (REG), conducting a professional enquiry that enables us to understand the impact of the CPDL model and respond quickly to findings, making adaptations to the project to maximise impact on learners. Pandemic related pressures, particularly staff absence and securing enough supply teachers within the cluster to release teachers had a significant impact on ​‘getting going’ with the cycles, as the REG believe that the face-to-face element of these sessions is essential to developing teacher confidence – barriers we’re still overcoming by making adaptations.

• We want to continue to build on the model of practice sharing and learning established through this project. The project has enabled true collaboration and support across our cluster and a shared value of and passion for music. 
• We want teachers in Milford Haven to continue to talk with one another about how the arts impact the engagement of their learners and to support each other’s continued development. We’ll be holding a CPDL session to share, showcase and celebrate our learning and practice at a cluster level, and will share our findings as part of a national professional enquiry project. 
• Artist practitioners understand further the challenges schools face and the complexity of curriculum design in the context of Curriculum for Wales. They have developed coaching skills that will support them to enable many more practitioners to bring about changes to their approaches. 
• We plan to finish by establishing a festival of the arts for Milford Haven schools – an event inspired by this project to celebrate all the musical experiences and skills in Milford Haven.