Unlocking Research: Sculpting New Creativities in Primary Education

Second in the series of seminars, hosted by the Chartered College of Teaching, that will inspire and enable new thinking about the benefits and viability of developing research-informed and research-generating practices. Inspired by the innovative series of books ‘Unlocking Research’ (series editors Dr James Biddulph and Mrs Julia Flutter, Routledge) each seminar will focus on each book in the series, with teachers, teaching assistants and academics presenting ideas and ways in which research influenced practice and how practice influenced research.

Our panel of speakers include:

Professor Pamela Burnard FCCT FRSA, Michelle Loughrey ‘Why creativities and why now’, Dr James Biddulph FCCT FRSA, Jukka Sinnemäki ‘Activating creativities by emphasising health and wellbeing: a holistic pedagogical practice from Finland’, Professor Donald Gray and Dr Laura Colucci-Gray ‘Cultivating Primary Creativities in STEAM Gardens’, and Dr Steven Berryman FCCT.

Resources

• Download Presentation: Michelle Loughrey and Professor Pamela Burnard
• Download Presentation: Jukka Sinnemäki ‘Activating creativities by emphasising health and wellbeing: a holistic pedagogical practice from Finland’
• Download Presentation: Professor Donald Gray and Dr Laura Colucci-Gray ‘Cultivating Primary Creativities in STEAM Gardens’
• ‘Not thinking, just using Logic’: Creativity in science education
• Insights into inspirational arts practice in schools: Nurturing the mind and feeding the soul at Netley Camden Primary School
• Lessons from lockdown: Releasing future possibilities for teacher professionalism
• Designing a curriculum to nurture compassionate citizens
• Assessing ‘collaborative creativity’: An investigation into how we can evaluate collaborative creativity in a Year 9 KS3 music classroom
• Possibility thinking developed through the arts in a Year 3 classroom
• Insights into inspirational arts practice in schools: A whole-school journey to celebrating creativities and releasing the imagination
• Pedagogy and possibility thinking
• Webinar watchback: Unlocking Research: “Reimagining Professional Development in Schools”
• Further reading & resources: Creative learning

Our presenters

Dr James Biddulph FCCT FRSA,following a degree in English and Music from Durham University, James won a travel scholarship and volunteered in two schools in Nepal.  After this, his passion for education evolved and in 2001 he started his career following a PGCE at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge.  In 2002, his creative approach to teaching gained him Advanced Skills Teachers (AST) status in Music and in 2003 he was awarded Outstanding New Teacher of the Year for London.  He is now the first Headteacher of the University of Cambridge Primary School, the first primary University Training School in the UK, which was recently graded as Outstanding by Ofsted.  Concurrently with opening two new schools, he completed his PhD which focused on creative learning in ethnic minority immigrant children’s homes and is now the series editor of a series of books aimed to unlock educational research for school leaders and practitioners.  James is a founding Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching. 

Professor Pamela Burnard FCCT FRSA, Professor of Arts, Creativities and Educations at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge.  She has published widely with 20 books and over 100 articles which advance the theory of multiple creativities across education sectors including early years, primary, secondary, further and higher education, through to creative and cultural industries and transdisciplinary (STEAM) practices. She is co-editor of the journal Thinking Skills and Creativity. Some of her recent publications include ‘Why Science and Arts Creativities Matter: (Re-)Configuring STEAM for Future-making Education’ (co-edited with Laura Colucci-Gray in 2020, Brill-i-Sense); Sculpting New Creativities in Primary Education (2021, Routledge) and ‘Doing Rebellious Research in and beyond the Academy (2022, Brill-i-Sense).  She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) and Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching, UK.  Pamela is also an experienced and highly skilled teacher who has worked in early years, primary and secondary school settings.

Michelle Loughrey, Independent Education Consultant and Coach.  Michelle is a successful teacher and education leader with over two decades’ experience working in primary education. She has substantial leadership experience leading schools, including as Headteacher.  Now working as an education consultant, Michelle provides skilled coaching and strategic support to individuals, schools and trusts; her particular interests and specialisms are in curriculum innovation, creativities, leadership development and organisational change.  Michelle is a trustee of School-Home Support and a Trust Director of the Avanti Schools Trust.

Jukka Sinnemäki, teacher/researcher, Jyväskylä Christian School, Finland. Co-founder of KnowNow-wellbeing key, an internationally scalable pedagogical and educational tool to increase holistic wellbeing and learning results through objective and subjective measuring.  This is a revolutionary tool to make quick and positive changes in the field of education from young children to the teachers and leaders of all ages.  Jukka has learned a valuable lesson from his years of dealing with children, we must observe before we educate, and connection must come before the subject.  We should understand more about student’s health.  This is why Jukka left traditional teaching behind and studied to focus on student’s general health and wellbeing.  Health comes before homework, trust your students and let them feel safe.  Have faith in them, do not create fear!

Jukka has been awarded globally and locally several times for his work and accomplishment.  In 2019, he won the Global Teacher Award in New Delhi, India.  In late 2019, was selected by RoundGlass as one of the 75 world’s most progressive thinkers and doers in the field of learning and from key disciplines that centre on wellbeing.

“Students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”- John C. Maxwell.

Dr Laura Colucci-Gray, Senior Lecturer in Science and Sustainability Education, Moray House School of Education and Sport, The University of Edinburgh.  Laura is Associate Professor in Science and Sustainability Education at Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh. She leads the STEAM and Sustainability strategy across Initial Teacher Education and co-leads the Teacher Education, Curriculum and Pedagogy Research hub.

Laura has published extensively across the fields of science education, teacher education and sustainability education drawing together issues in science and society with embodied and dialogical approaches in education. She is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Systems Biology at the University of Turin (Italy) and a member of the voluntary organisation One Seed Forward, which both informs and supports her practice in community settings.

Professor Donald Gray B.Sc., Dip.OEd., M.Ed., Ph.D.  Donald Gray joined the University of Aberdeen, School of Education in 2005.  He has a background in science education, curriculum development and educational research.  He worked on the earlier Scottish Assessment of Achievement Programme (Science) and was the TIMSS quality control monitor for Scotland.  He has worked for the Scottish Council for Research in Education, been involved in an international study of Civic Education based in Humboldt University Berlin and was Faculty Research Co-ordinator in Strathclyde University Faculty of Education prior to joining the University of Aberdeen.  He has a particular interest in complexity, science and sustainability, Goethean science and environmental education, as well as general research related to teacher education.  He has a long standing interest in outdoor learning and the theoretical perspectives underpinning the value of outdoor, natural environmental experiential education with a particular reference to embodied cognition and enactivism.  Currently he is involved in a range of projects relating to food growing and food activism in educational contexts.

Dr Steven Berryman FCCT, Director of Arts, Culture and Community for the Odyssey Trust for Education. He has worked in education for nearly 20 years, and contributes widely through research, teaching, advisory and non executive director roles. One of the first Chartered Teachers, Steven continues to support the programme as an assessor. Steven has considerable expertise in arts education, and is the Vice-President of the National Society for Educators of Art and Design, and an advisory panel member for the Cultural Learning Alliance. Most recently he was appointed a member of the expert panel for the DFE/DCMS National Plan for Music Education refresh.

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