AOLE2, 2019, MegCaswell, 2.8

What is the value of creativity in Primary Education? Your creative potential, sometimes known as talent, develops mainly during your childhood. It is influenced by environmental conditions, life experiences and interacts with basic cognitive developmental trends during human development (Lubart, 2015). The arts and creativity have always had a major role in enriching the education for young children (Welsh Government, 2013; Harari, 2011: 183). This has always been seen from the NACCE (1999) policies which clearly supported creativity to be cross-curricular (Craft et al, 2014; NACCE, 1999). Now 20 years later, in the new curriculum ‘Successful Futures’, Donaldson (2015) is advocating the importance of creativity and its role in cognitive development.  Creativity falls under the ‘Expressive Arts’ AoLE, where Donaldson (2015, p 43) writes “The expressive arts provides opportunities to explore thinking, refine, and communicate ideas, engaging thinking, imagination and senses ...

What is the value of nature connectivity in Primary Education? Theorists today have a high concern that children are becoming highly disconnected with nature (Louv, 2008; Sobel, 2008; Ridgers, Knowles and Sayers, 2012; Bragg, 2013 Waite et. al. 2016; Charles, 2018; Wilson, 2018). Theorists such as Wilson, Faber, Chawla and others have undertaken studies that suggest the wide range of benefits the outdoors has on children and their learning (Faber, Taylor and Kuo 2009; Wilson, 2012; Chawla et al. 2014; Gurholt and Sanderud, 2016; McMahan et. al. 2018; Piccininni et. al. 2018). Following this, as part of the new Donaldson review, nature now needs to be a part of the classroom. Included in Successful Futures Donaldson (2015) outlines 4 purposes that are at the heart of the curriculum. Donaldson writes that one of them as “I wish to create healthy, confident individuals who are knowledgeable about their culture, community, society and the world, now and in the past” (Donaldson, 2015...

What would the pedagogical principles be of your dream school?  The word ‘pedagogy’ can be mistaken by primarily being known as teaching (Smith, 2012). Donaldson (2015) advocates that ‘Pedagogy is about so much more than teaching in the narrow sense of methods used in the classroom’. It is more about the carefully selected approaches used by teachers in the classroom compared to the purposes and objectives of the lesson and curriculum (Donaldson, 2015). In the new curriculum ‘Successful Futures’, that is to be implemented in 2020, Donaldson (2015) has outlined 12 pedagogical principles that relate to the 4 core purposes of the curriculum as a whole. He also identifies 6 AoLE that can be seen in the image on the left.  Each one of these AoLE will make “distinct and strong contributions to developing the four purposes of the curriculum and taken together they will define the breadth of the curriculum” (Donaldson, 2015, p. 38). Good teaching methods are the key t...