Inter-professionalism between teachers and creative practitioners: Risk, exploration and professional identity – learning in situ and the impact on practice

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ABSTRACT

This paper seeks to learn from and capture the impact of a national creative learning initiative on five teachers who made significant changes to their practice following their participation. These changes occurred in parallel with a renewed sense of professional identity therefore, this case study aims to explore these changes, isolate the key drivers and examine how the teachers’ identities have been transformed. The Lead Creative Schools scheme has a bespoke approach to each participating school, as it requires teachers to work closely with creative practitioners through a process of enquiry to address a school priority. It is a complex professional learning experience for the teacher as they navigate a new relationship with a practitioner from outside the education sector and take risks with pedagogical practice. Drawing on pre- and post-project data, lesson observations and researcher journals to select the five participants; analysis from further data collected through semi-structured questionnaires considers the identity of the hybrid teacher and their developing philosophies brought about by experiential and creative professional learning. The findings reveal the programme allowed teachers the opportunity to construct new realities and make sense of novel ways of working, which resulted in renewed confidence and agency, as the teachers discovered a paradigm which supports their values and purpose within education. This puts the teachers in a favourable position as they engage with the new curriculum in Wales and this study provides timely insights into transformative professional learning, in readiness for curriculum reform.

KEYWORDS:

• Creative learning
• professional learning
• identity
• risk
• engagement
• agency
• curriculum reform

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nia Richards

Nia Richards is an independent education consultant. Previously, she was a Regional Lead for the Lead Creative Schools programme for 5 years. She has 13 years’ experience as a teacher of art, PSHE and citizenship, working in secondary schools in York and Harrogate and a college of further education in North Wales. She completed an MA in Practitioner Research in 2015, writing her dissertation on dialogic feedback.

Sophie Hadaway

Sophie Hadaway is a Project Lead for the Creative Learning through the Arts programme at the Arts Council of Wales, having been Regional Lead for the Lead Creative Schools programme for the past 5 years during the first phase of the programme. Sophie started her career as a primary and middle school teacher before joining the advisory education service and later becoming a mentor on the Masters in Educational Practice programme in Wales prior to her current position. She is also studying for an MPhil with Nottingham University – her research is focused on creative practitioner dialogue and exploratory learning.