With Gatecacre’s move to a new school not much more than twelve months away, the school’s Senior Leadership Team were keen to engage staff in exploring the exciting opportunities the new build would offer for working in different ways with both space and time.
This is where as creatives came in – commissioned to research, plan and deliver a two-day INSET offering all staff opportunities to explore national and international case studies, experiment with different structures - and reflect on the potential impacts on young people. What emerged was an INSET with a difference – with a conference set-up with both whole group activities and elective sessions ranging from “Learning Outside the Classroom” to “Seasonal Timetabling”. All were made available digitally to staff - and members of the Art, Drama, History, MFL and Science departments went on to work with us on small scale research projects exploring in more depth some of the methodologies that had been introduced.
“Real value for money! It was fantastic to be able to put this in the hands of as creatives, who know how to deliver training experiences – and who know how to work with young people!”
(Headteacher)
“All sessions were done really positively – as creatives engaged us in practical activities that placed us in the pupils’ shoes to really review and consider different ideas and approaches!”
(Class Teacher)
Building a New Kind of School was commissioned by Gateacre Comprehensive and supported with funding from Curious Minds.