Gargantua

I've just returned from seeing the amazing production of 'Gargantua' at Tallis. It's part of the National Theatre Connections Festival and is being performed both in school and at The Soho Theatre next week. Fingers crossed we get selected to perform at the national Theatre itself! The show demonstrates the amazing talents not only of our young students (nearly everyone in the play is from KS3) but also the collaborative creativity of our staff. The play is fantastically entertaining and has everything from a live band to huge animations in addition to the wonderful performances.

Well done to everyone involved for another groundbreaking event at Tallis.

Play Me, I'm Yours

Touring internationally since 2008, ‘Play Me, I’m Yours’ is an artwork by artist Luke Jerram. the point of the artwork is to encourage people to "take ownership of their urban environment",

Presented for Sing London and the City of London Festival, 30 street pianos have been installed on streets, in public squares and parks, train stations, and markets. Like a creative blank canvas, the pianos are there for any member of the public to play and engage with. The pianos will be in place until July 13th, after which time they’ll be donated to local schools and community groups.

I think this is a really good idea and I can imagine a piano/pianos being placed around the school especially on the concourse would be interesting to see how many people can and will play the piano, and if any visitors, delivery people etc play them.

check out Play Me I'm Yours website to read and see more

 

Mindmap Part 2

The meeting began to notice that some elements of the mindmap that made for effective and interesting links. Lots of people were really interested in the idea of mapping and that then drew us into the idea of exploration, pathways and quests and game play. It seemed that these ideas were really interlinked.

We then had a discussion of outcomes. Tom said there seemed to be a real move to make outcomes explicit in lessons and wondered if that might restrict opportunities for exploration. This then led to the idea of an experience where visitors would walk away with very different personal experiences and outcomes. There was a real interest in the idea of navigation and pathways - the idea that students wanted more opportunities to make choices and travel their own creative journey. There was a desire for people to experience the exhilaration, frustration, uncertainty and excitement of beginning something without being certain of its outcome - an experience that alerted and challenged visitors to think about the impact of creativity on learning.

Serious Play

I've just watched a great TED Talk by Stuart Brown on the subject of play and why it's so important for us all to cultivate the art of play throughout our lives. About half way through the talk, he describes his involvement in a project at Stanford University called the d.school. This is a school of design which includes the following in its manifesto:

* Prepare FUTURE INNOVATORS to be breakthrough thinkers & doers
* Use DESIGN THINKING to inspire multidisciplinary teams
* Foster RADICAL COLLABORATION between students, faculty & industry
* Tackle BIG PROJECTS and use prototyping to discover new solutions

It occurred to me that this would make an excellent mission statement for Thomas Tallis School. He then shows a student film based on a design project exploring reasons why meetings are often so boring and suggesting a possible solution. In the spirit of collaboration I have ripped this bit of the talk and re-presented it to you in the above clip. I really like the look of the d.school and wonder if we could borrow any ideas from Stanford in re-thinking our curriculum at Key Stage 3? What if the cross-curricular learning days, for example, were structured around a problem posing and solving task? Students could work in teams, with staff to support them from a range of disciplines, to identify a design challenge and develop creative solutions. What I liked about the most recent day was the spirit of play and discovery that I saw across the school. I think we could all do with a bit more of this.

I know Ms Hawkins is an expert in the creative design process and I wonder if she would be willing to show us a couple of strategies for developing ideas? I may suggest a radical re-think of our Leadership Team meetings based on this film.