CROSS-CURRICULAR STARTING POINTS

The idea of a ‘creative curriculum’, which seems so popular in primary schools at the present, appears to be closely associated with a cross-curricular approach. Increasing numbers of schools are basing learning experiences around a ‘big bang’ – a highly engaging starting point (or ‘provocation’ to use the Reggio Emilia term) which is designed to stimulate children’s curiosity and imagination – leading off into a range of work in each classroom, transcending subject boundaries and following children’s interests. Alternatively, primary school curricula are being built around ‘thinking skills’, ‘enquiry approaches’, ‘multiple intelligences’, ‘accelerated learning’, ‘philosophy for children’, ‘creative dispositions’ or ‘habits of mind’: all indicators of a dissatisfaction with a traditional knowledge-based curriculum and a concern to reflect a holistic ethos concerned with the development of the whole child. Subjects can occasionally be dismissed as artificial human constructs which bear little relation to the ways in which children view the world and act as a constraint on their creativity. This movement has been supported to some extent by government reforms; in England the policy document Excellence and Enjoyment – the Primary National Strategy (DfES 2003) gave permission to innovate by freeing schools from the constraints of the National Curriculum for part of the week and exhorting them to make links between subjects in their planning. More recently, both the influential Cambridge Primary Review (Alexander 2009) and the UK government’s own Independent Review of the Primary Curriculum (Rose 2009) have proposed primary curricula based around learning areas or domains rather than subject disciplines. It is almost as if what was previously the ‘hidden curriculum’ – the affective domain which schools sought to inculcate by ‘osmosis’ – has become the overt curriculum, while the more traditional subject-bound, knowledge-based curriculum is now ‘hidden’. To those of us who were teaching in primary schools during the 1980s, this trend has a curious sense of déjà vu about it. We were trained to plan from ‘topic webs’

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in which the various components of the primary curriculum were subsumed under broad themes and we were encouraged to follow individual children’s interests as far as possible within the constraints of class size. The backlash against this liberal, developmental approach to the primary curriculum deriving from the Piagetian ideas in the Plowden Report (Central Advisory Council for Education 1967) was sudden and devastating. The publication of a statutory, subject-based National Curriculum (DES 1987) was followed by a radical critique of primary pedagogy by the ‘three wise men’ Alexander et al. (1992) in which they suggested that cross-curricular topic work risked diluting children’s understanding of important concept areas and compromising their literacy and numeracy skills in favour of ‘contrived’ links to broad themes. An increasing focus on teachers’ subject knowledge and children’s standards of attainment through the 1990s virtually drove topic work to extinction in English primary schools. Of course, its re-emergence is set against a very different cultural and legal background from that of the 1980s: schools still have to ‘deliver’ the National Curriculum, necessitating regular audits of curriculum coverage, and children’s literacy and numeracy skills continue to be tested and reported upon nationally. The outcome of this is that, in many primary schools, English and mathematics are considered too ‘important’ to be fully integrated into the cross-curricular mix, retaining their special status of ‘morning subjects’. However, science is not so fortunate, particularly since the abandonment of national testing at the end of primary school in 2010. As in the 1980s, science is everywhere being subsumed into topic work, losing its identity within more general ‘enquiry’ approaches which may tend to skate over its conceptual difficulties. In some ways, the high water mark for primary science was in the ‘bad old days’ of the 1990s, where it had a clear curriculum status as a ‘core subject’ and its own designated space in the timetable! This is not to suggest that science cannot combine effectively with other aspects of the curriculum to enhance learning. As suggested by the title of this chapter (and introduced in Chapter 2), it is one of the characteristics of creative teachers that they make links between ‘previously unrelated ideas’ (Koestler 1964) and begin to rethink subject content to make it more meaningful and accessible to children. But it is not cross-curricularity per se that makes science teaching creative; it is perfectly possible to teach a scientific concept creatively while remaining firmly within subject boundaries. For example, in teaching the unit Gases all around us (QCA/DfEE 1998) to pupils aged 9-11 at Shoscombe Primary School, Somerset, teacher David Young surprised the class by setting up a series of ‘engage activities’ on their tables while they were out at break. These consisted of a candle burning; a series of plastic cups containing different numbers of marbles; and pairs of inflated and deflated balls. Although there were question cards explaining the activities – e.g. ‘Watch the candle as it burns, what do you notice?’, ‘Look at how the marbles are arranged, shake them, what is happening?’, ‘Squeeze the two rugby balls, what can you say?’ – David gave no vocal instructions. Initially bemused, groups of pupils soon began interacting with the exhibits and discussing their ideas. This unexpected start to the lesson – out of the normal routine – together with an invitation to look at everyday phenomena differently, provided the ‘hook’ needed to engage children’s enthusiasm in a new scientific topic. It was a creative piece of teaching with no need for links to other curriculum areas. However, what

this episode arguably lacked was a meaningful context. Why were children looking at marbles in a plastic cup, other than as a pedagogical device to introduce the notion of particle motion in gases? The main reason for linking science to other subjects is to contextualise children’s learning and give it a purpose which makes sense to the children and helps them to make sense of scientific learning in relation to their everyday lives. Setting learning experiences in a cross-curricular context can also support children’s creativity in science; for example, the teaching of magnetism within the context of designing and making a magnetic board game can lead children to explore the possibilities of what can be done with magnets more widely than could, say, an investigation to find out which materials magnetism can pass through. This links with the notions of ‘diversive exploration’ (Moyles 1989) and ‘possibility thinking’ (Craft 2000), introduced in Chapter 3, suggesting that while it is possible to teach creatively without making cross-curricular links, in order to teach for creativity we need to set scientific activities within a broader context. From Context to Concept (New Zealand Ministry of Education 1999a) suggests starting activities from everyday contexts such as the orchestra, the garage, the playground, the classroom, the backyard, the kitchen and the supermarket. Such starting points, while not explicitly cross-curricular in themselves, offer opportunities for taking learning in many different directions. In a study of primary teachers’ approaches to planning cross-curricular links between science and mathematics, Hurley (2001) identified five different categories of curriculum integration ranging from sequential planning and teaching to being taught together in ‘intended equality’; she concluded that achievement in science tended to be higher with more integration. So it seems that the more we link science with other subject areas to provide meaningful contexts for children’s learning, the greater the potential for both their creativity and their scientific conceptual development. However, we need to plan with the ‘big scientific picture’ in mind (Shepardson 1997) to ensure that the concepts don’t get lost in the context, and we need to monitor children’s creative outcomes to ensure that they include scientific creativity. To use the example above, a beautifully designed magnetic board game might demonstrate children’s creativity in the choice and use of materials, colours and media, yet employ a relatively pedestrian use of magnets to move pieces around the board. Conversely, a game with less obvious aesthetic qualities and creativity in design might exemplify a more diverse exploration of the possibilities of magnets attracting and repelling each other, ‘flipping’ over or ‘hovering’. However, this is not to say that science does not itself have aesthetic qualities which may be incorporated in children’s creativity, as we shall explore in the next section.