When I first arrived at St Ambrose School in Salford, it was the day after attending a seminar at the Centre for Creativity, Arts and Literacy (CRACL) led by Paul Collard of Creativity, Culture and Education. When I mentioned this to Bernie Furey, the assistant head in charge of creativity across the curriculum and research and development at the school, we quickly realised that the animation Collard had shown and some of the stories he had shared were the results of the work of St Ambrose who have focused on creativity in teaching and learning across the school for many years. No coincidence! Indeed Bernie and previous head, Marie Garside, visited Boston Arts Academy nine years ago and later became a Creative Partnerships school. so it was very interesting to begin to understand the relationship with Tate Liverpool in this context.
Over the last two years the school have been in a partnership with the Tate Liverpool, with Bernie in role as a SLICE (specialist leader in cultural education). This scheme is managed by Curious Minds who are a bridge organisation for the Arts Council. This enabled a partnership through which Tate Liverpool and St Ambrose considered how young people are invited to engage with art in galleries. This resulted in impact for both partners as Bernie reflected:
Tate changed their practice that year and it also made us re-evaluate how we engage with an art gallery. Years ago, when we used to go to an art gallery, we would ask the children to sit down and do a drawing of a work that they liked in the gallery but I think now that is a total waste of time. We get them to gather resources and create collages; take photographs; tweet; use social media. Because that is their language and that is how they get to learn more. It made us think about when you go to a gallery you don’t have to look at everything and you might just look at one or two pieces and that’s fine.
The partnership, now in the second year, has also led to changing practices in relation to staff planning meetings, highlighting the need for teachers to be inspired and stimulated:
So, through working with the Tate it’s changed our way of thinking and it’s also had an impact on how we’ve had staff meetings because we realised that it’s good to get out of the school and go to a creative organisation and have our meeting there because we are more inspired and we’ve found that we get better results and that came from our discussions with the Tate.
Despite this extensive experience, it is also very clear that St Ambrose do not only reflect on their previous successes. They are currently collaborating with Bill Lucas on developing creative habits of mind and the school has also been working with their new head, to produce a three year creative plan which they have articulated in visual form.
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