Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums worked with seven schools from Newcastle and Tyneside to support teachers to develop pupils’ communication and enquiry skills through the visual arts, crafts and creative writing, supported by PHF’s Teacher Development Fund. Discover how they embraced collaboration and embedded new approaches in their work.
Our original ambition brought together seven schools from Newcastle and North and South Tyneside with local arts and heritage settings and three artist practitioners covering visual arts, crafts and creative writing. Our aim was to support teachers in developing pupils’ communication and enquiry skills. With the pressures and uncertainties of Covid our delivery became more streamlined with each school working on their own bespoke programme of development. Artist practitioners, gallery assistants and teachers collaborated within each setting to create a model that allowed for venue visits and built on these within classroom activities. Teachers became confident in understanding how arts-based learning within a heritage context could support wider curriculum outcomes particularly around communication and inquiry.
This collaborative way of working allows participants to be experimental and free – they can make mistakes and be ok with that. This was only made possible by bringing people together and building relationships and trust over a long period of time. The teachers, gallery assistants and artist practitioners have built up a shared vocabulary of experience and creativity. This has been the luxury and legacy the project has given us.
The Teacher Development Fund’s Cohort Learning Programme brings together teachers, artist practitioners and school leaders across projects to share their progress and challenges. TDF Associate Greg Klerkx tells us how this programme helps nurture a thriving community of practice.
Supported by the Teacher Development Fund, The Forge’s Teaching Things Differently project set out to explore whether photography can support children’s progress in creative writing. Find out what they learned through this innovative programme, partnering with artist practitioners and teachers across seven schools in the North East.
