Creativity Beliefs and Perspectives
Purpose
This activity can be used to help parents and the wider school community to develop an understanding of creativity and why it’s important. It will support you to connect with them and gain a deeper understanding of their views and beliefs, enabling a continued dialogue on the importance of creative thinking and their support for your school’s ambitions, vision and plans.
A range of methods/ activities to gather views are included offering alternatives ways for parents/ community to engage.
Resources and setting up
Survey content - statements/questions and rating scale (suggestions are included in Resource 1 - Survey Statements/Questions and Rating Scale).
Materials and Resources for your chosen survey method – see below.
Digital Survey method –
- Your survey uploaded to a digital tool (for example SurveyMonkey, Google Forms, Canva, Menti or Kahoot!).
Voice Recording Buttons Method –
- Voice recording buttons with each of your chosen statements/ questions pre-recorded (these buttons are available from a range of online retailers and are reusable)
- Instruction poster (a suggestion is included in Resource 2 - Voice Recording Buttons Instruction Poster)
- Recording chart on flipchart paper/whiteboard (see photo Example A.)
- Sticky dots or marker pens for participants to record their responses.
Example A.
Flipchart/Whiteboard Method (wall or table) –
- Your survey written up (see Example B.),
- Sticky dots or marker pens for participants to record their responses
- Instruction poster (a suggestion is included in Resource 3 - Flipchart/Whiteboard Instruction Poster).
Example B.
Survey Station Method –
- instruction poster (a suggestion is included in Resource 4 – Creativity Survey Station Instruction Poster)
- Survey slip (a suggestion is included in Resource 5 – Creativity Survey Slip)
- Pens and a box for posting the survey slips.
Resources for Reflection
You may choose to compare your findings using Resource 6 – Extracts from PISA 2022 Results - Creative Minds Creative Schools.
You may choose to use the Creative Thinking in Schools – A Leadership Playbook to support some follow up activities.
Duration
This will depend on your survey method(s) and how you decide to gather, analyse and report on responses.
Getting going
Consider how children and young people could play an active role in the different stages of this activity.
Decide who will be involved in:
- leading this activity
- creating, testing and finalising your survey
- deciding on your survey method and making your survey
- gathering, analysing and sharing your findings
- writing the report on your findings
- feeding back your findings
- agreeing your next steps
Step 1
Decide whose creativity beliefs and perspectives you want to collect? For example, parents of new children, parents of children in a specific year group, all parents or your wider school community. At a later date you might collect the views of students, staff and governors and compare the findings to those of parents.
Agree what you want to find out and formulate your survey content (suggestions are included in Resource 1).
Decide on your survey method(s), you might use more than one to generate a greater number of responses.
Decide where you will do you survey. The Voice Recording Buttons, the Survey Station and the Flipchart/Whiteboard methods could work well at a parents evening, a school or community event, they could be placed for a period of time in the school reception area or in a community setting.
Consider how you will analyse the responses and report back on them.
Step 2
Carryout your survey using your chosen method(s) and timeframe.
Step 3
Analyse the responses to your survey and decide on next steps (suggestions can be found in the Reflecting Together section).
Reflecting together
- What does the analysis of the survey responses tell you and what are the key findings in terms of creativity beliefs and perspectives?
- You might compare your findings to the extract of those in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OCED) Programme on International Student Assessment (PISA) 2022 Results - Creative Minds, Creative Schools – Resource 6
- Once you have fed back the findings to your school community (for example, parents, governors, staff) what did you discover from their responses? Did they provide you with a stronger mandate/parental support to developing a new vision for your school?
- What are your next steps as a school? They might include:
- Inviting a specific group of parents to attend a focus group session to further explore and develop their understanding of creativity. The following activities in the Playbook might support this focus group discussion: Activity 1 - Understanding the Essence of Creativity - Page 10 or Activity 18 – Debunk Myths About Creativity – Page 62
- Sharing information/evidence on the importance of developing creative thinking – Pages 12 and 13 of the Playbook provide insights into the case for creativity in schools from a range of perspectives.
- Conducting the same survey with young people in the school and comparing similarities and differences between the findings
- Holding an event demonstrating how creative thinking is used in different subjects and in different year groups across the school
- Comparing the survey findings to your school vision
- Using the survey as a baseline and re-running it at a later date to compare changes in beliefs and perspectives.