Creative Communities
We are committed to supporting all the members of our community - students, colleagues, parents, carers, friends and local residents - in developing their creative potential. We utilise our resources as a Specialist Arts College, Leading Edge school and national School of Creativity to support community cohesion with a particular emphasis on developing and celebrating talent and the capacity for life-long learning. This page describes some of the many projects we have undertaken in recent years. For further information, please visit the Community pages of our school website or contact Lisa Sproat, our Creative Communities Development Manager.
Creative Communities Report
This document summarises the many community projects we have undertaken during the last academic year with a wide variety of partners. We have employed a full time Creative Communities Development Officer to co-ordinate these projects, support our partners and evaluate the impact of a range of interventions. If you have any questions about the content of the report or you'd like to find out more about the Creative Communities Development work, please contact Lisa Sproat.
Creativity Conference
It seems a long time ago now, but our journey to becoming a School of Creativity started in earnest with this whole staff residential conference in March 2005. The aim of the event was to promote the value of creativity in learning and a whole range of workshops were organised covering a variety of approaches and techniques. Nick Williams, Head of the BRIT School (and ex-head of Tallis) was the keynote speaker and he spoke passionately about the need for teachers to model the creative learning process and be prepared to take risks. A journalistic team, led by Emma Warren, created a magazine about the conference in a single day and Loaded Productions made this film, documenting the activities. Consistent with the challenging nature of the event, the film makers were tasked with shooting and editing the film in only 24 hours so that it vould be shown to everyone in the plenary meeting. As you can see they did a brilliant job.
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The Creative Tallis Action Research Group
We believe that students and members of staff should collaborate on creating a curriculum for the 21st century. In order to develop our ability to integrate creative learning strategies into this new curriculum, we set up an Action Research Group comprising student representatives from all years and a group of enthusiastic members of staff. We now meet weekly to discuss progress, share our thinking and publish policy recommendations for consideration by the school's Leadership Team. We recently presented a report about School of Creativity activities since September 2008, complete with a set of recommendations and a draft Manifesto for a Creative Tallis. The group has planned several innovative arts residencies including two by Tangled Feet theatre company. The group blog is used to communicate between meetings and highlight aspects of creative learning, especially in the field of new technologies and Web 2.0 applications. In November 2010, several members of the team will attend the Creativity World Forum in Oklahoma. We intend to create a Pop Up School at the conference and explore some of the major issues in contemporary education with visiting delegates. The project includes a close collaboration with two other London schools and schools in Oklahoma. Check out the blog and project website to find out more.
Creative Learning Summer School
The focus of the 2010 summer school, organised collaboratively with Kidbrooke School and Emergency Exit Arts, was the theme of Transformation. Thirty-five year 6 and 7 students either transferring to or already at both schools took part in the four day project which culminated in a performance at the Mayor's Thames Festival night carnival procession.
The students were asked to imagine the world in 2075. There has been an environmental disaster. Natural resources have almost disappeared and tribes now roam the land, foraging for scrap materials that they can recycle into clothes, homes and art. Their task was then to design costumes, musical instruments, deities and symbolic movements that would represent their tribal identities. This resulted in some inventive solutions based on techniques and processes demonstrated by the practitioners from Emergency Exit Arts. For more information, check out the Transformation 2010 blog. |
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The Creative Learning Project
The Creative Learning Project is an innovative collaboration between Thomas Tallis School, the CLC team in Greenwich and our primary school partners. We are delighted to have the opportunity to share some of our approaches to creative learning with our partners. We are particularly interested in engaging learners through using new technologies in a blended approach that acknowledges a range of learning styles. We are keen to share ideas and best practice with our colleagues so that we can learn from one another.
We have worked with several primary schools across the borough and received very positive feedback about the impacts of working in this way on students motivation and engagement, literacy, ICT skills and creative thinking. We are experiencing particular success at engaging boys through the creative use of new technologies. Check out the project website to find out more. |
The Amygdala Project - Reflecting on Transition
Inspired by Professor Helen Storey's generous gift of the original scale model for her Amygdala installation, we decided to encourage Year 7 students to reflect on a time in their lives when their amygdalas were working overtime - the transition from primary to secondary school. The amygdala is the part of your brain which controls your fight or flight reactions. Students submitted their thoughts about this challenging time in their lives and we published them as an online book using Issuu (see opposite). This was then shown to family and friends at the "Identity" inter-disciplinary arts event in January 2009.
The stories and pictures contained in the book testify to the complex set of emotions that accompany the transfer to secondary school. Thankfully, most of the contributors report that, despite feeling worried and nervous, their introduction to Thomas Tallis was very positive. We are hoping to build on the success of this project next year. |
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The Horn Park School local history project
As a specialist arts college, we are committed to working in collaboration with a range of community partners to develop creative learning. Our most recent project was a partnership between Tallis, Horn Park Primary School, Eelyn Lee Productions and artist Nick Cattermole which resulted in a week long, whole school residency exploring the theme of local history. A huge range of activities took part across the week including poetry, digital photography, concrete sound collages, songwriting, film making, interviewing local residents and creating prints. A documentary film was made (see below) which documents views of the Horn Park Estate entitled "The Lost Estate". It is a moving and poignant look at ideas about community, identity and change. A special viewing of the film for the whole school, parents and members of the local community was held on Tuesday 12 May. Feedback from the event demonstrates how important such a document can be in creating a sense of pride and belonging for people. Future projects with the school will attempt to build on this sense of community cohesion using a variety of creative strategies.
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Click the play button (left) to hear one of the sound collages created by students at the school with the support of artists Nick Cattermole. Noises were sampled from the school environment and fed into a sequencing programme. They were then arranged by the students into a composition. Awareness of rhythm and timing, plus an ability to manipulate sophisticated ICT hardware and software make this activity a fantastic opportunity for exercising creative thinkng skills.
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What the community said...
"It was nice to see all generations of Horn Park coming together to make the film, it had the feel good factor" "Very enjoyable. Good to see contributions from everybody in the community" "I feel Proud to be part of Horn Park" "Really nice to see a film about the school and area put together so professionally" "Wonderful music and a fantastic DVD" |
Girls in Focus
If the children are not initiated in to the village they will burn it down just to feel its warmth
-- Traditional African Saying
-- Traditional African Saying
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At the beginning of the summer holidays Tallis commissioned film company Eelyn Lee Productions to run a 4-day media project for girls aged 14-19. Held at the Greenwich Youth for Christ drop-in centre on Telemann Square, the girls worked alongside a team of creative practitioners developing skills in photography and filmmaking.
For four consecutive days the group worked as a creative team – generating ideas; discussing the work of contemporary artists; sharing skills and producing work. They shared lunch every day, cooked by Ferrier resident Rosa Goncalves from the Guarida Community Café. The girls were quick to form considered opinions about some of the photographic images we looked at. This meant that when we began to illustrate some fables, sayings and parables the group came up with some sophisticated and unique ideas. |
Over the course of the four days everyone discovered a particular strength. Whether it was directing, interviewing, composing shots or boosting group morale, everyone found a niche role in which to blossom. We brought one of the photographs to life by editing some of the video footage shot during the project into a short film (see above). We asked some local residents about their thoughts about the photographic images which triggered some interesting discussions around young people and community. We are very proud of the girls' work which demonstrates a sophisticated and intelligent view of community relations.
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Tree Dressing in Kidbrooke
The school has a long tradition of supporting the local community. School of Creativity status provides us with further resources to help support the development of creative learning for our stakeholders. In recent years, we have been active supporters of the annual midwinter Tree Dressing celebrations on the local housing estate. The estate is currently being demolished to make way for new homes so this year's event was even more poignant. We decided to make a website featuring the various activities that took place in the lead up to and during the celebrations. These included artists working with local primary school children to make lanterns for the evening parade and decorations for the trees in Telemann Square, songs being written and recorded by members of local community organisations, a performance by the Tallis Steel Pans band, fireworks and food cooked and served by local residents in the Community Hall. The event would not have been possible without the collaboration of a wide variety of partners. Check out the site to find out more.
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