At our September First Wednesday session in Edinburgh, Stephen Bullock from Education Scotland addressed the ways in which arts and cultural organisations can engage creatively with the new Scottish Education system.  His insightful talk highlighted how arts and cultural organisations can connect, communicate and collaborate with schools and educators nationally to encourage and inspire creative thinking across the school curriculum.

Defining ‘creativity’ is not always as straightforward as it may seem.  Education Scotland’s visions of creativity is that, through creative learning, children are expected to develop key skills including curiosity, open-mindedness, imagination and problem-solving. Stephen’s insight into the Curriculum for Excellence and its idea of creative teaching and learning across the school curriculum was useful for arts and cultural organisations to understand how to collaborate more effectively with schools and teachers.

There are several key tools that will assist the collaboration process between arts and cultural organisations and educators. The Creativity Portal, local Creative Learning Networks and the newly developed Glow platform are all beneficial in sharing and communicating creative ideas and resources as well as making useful connections with school and pupils.  Stephen highlighted National Galleries of Scotland and NYCOS as useful examples of previous collaborations with schools and arts and cultural organisations which have helped to link cross-curricular subjects through creative learning.

Exclusively available for Culture Republic Partners, First Wednesday events are monthly lunchtime sessions where attendees can learn and network around key issues affecting our sector. Next time we’ll be in Glasgow with Antonia Lee-Bapty from Euan’s Guide who will talk about you can get involved in Disabled Access Day.   Contact us for more information about this event or to find out about Culture Republic partnerships.