The Project

The TIME Project

The TIME Project was created to empower six Lancashire schools across three years to develop and support their arts provision and introduce a range of methods to embed the arts across the curriculum through CPDs and workshops, to help inspire learning and raise achievement.

Aims

The TIME Project aimed to:

• Empower teachers to embrace HMDT Music’s methodology of embedding activities across the curriculum using a combination of CPD training through artists’ workshops and delivery, leading to them being able to plan, develop and implement arts-based cross-curricular learning;
• Build a coherent skills resource bank which can be shared amongst schools and leave a legacy beyond the duration of the project;
• Further explore the perceived link between such projects and ways of working and a rise in academic achievement;
• Expand the role of teachers as owners of the creative and delivery process as well as that of the students and us (and other arts organisations), without increasing pressure in the current education environment;
• Establish successful working partnerships with local educational organisations to develop a replicable model for regional roll-out and determine that the same methods are transferable in a variety of schools, localities and settings.

Activities

To build up staff skills, each year two teachers from each school received a combination of CPD, training and delivery sessions working with artists in a range of genres focused initially on music, art and drama using the following format:

• In term 1, the teachers received workshops by specialist artists in each of art, music, and drama, building skills to embed activities across the curriculum supported by CPD sessions shared with all 6 schools to reflect and consolidate skills learnt;
• In term 2, they used the skills learnt to lead their own arts based cross-curricular sessions in each of art, music and drama, supported by the artists. These workshops were again consolidated in CPD sessions;
• In term 3, the teachers created their own cross-curricular mini projects using at least 3 art forms with support from the core artist team and/or guest specialists in different genres and shared CPDs. Unlike the former sessions which were focussed on process, these led to a chosen outcome such as a performance or film.

Outcomes

Despite the complications of Covid-19 meaning some sessions couldn’t happen, some workshops and all CPDs were delivered online and Year 2 mini-projects morphed into a Create Your Own Puppet Show series of films to at home, the project still fulfilled its aims thanks to its coherent, tested structure, the flexibility and commitment of all the participating schools and artists, the trust built up between them and the willingness and engagement of the children.

External evaluator Colin Morley’s report highlights how teachers developed new skills and were empowered to try new approaches and embed them within their own practice; how its legacy is reflected in the way teachers now think more broadly about how and where the arts can apply to other aspects of the curriculum; how it impacted on inspiring children’s learning and confidence through learning new skills, being inspired to think outside the box, express themselves creatively and be more involved in the process and how it impacted across the whole schools as well as the individual teachers and children engaged in the actual project delivery.

It has brought changes to school’s infrastructure, their ways of communicating with the school community, their methods of celebrating achievement e.g. through film instead of relying on performance and the focus on process and not just product.

Teachers’ confidence in their arts skills rose from 10- 40% across all art forms to 70-100% with similar statistics reflecting a shift in perception of what the benefits of incorporating the arts might actually be. Each year across the project, the increase of including the arts in the classroom rose by 20% (although Covid did impair this growth). The impact on teacher is also seen through the use of the mentor system (both formal and informal), the quality of the CPDs and artists’ delivering, with a particular emphasis on the relationships of trust and support built up between them – for the artists themselves, becoming ‘a critical friend’ was an important lesson in knowing how and when to step back and how to focus on the process and not feeling the need to deliver a finished product each session.

Each year new targets were set and achieved including use of the arts to support mental health and well-being, embedding arts practices in teaching pedagogy, evidence of an increased ‘arts culture within schools and evidence the project can be sustained and offers a legacy through the school community, mentorship, school networks and the introduction of HMDT Music’s new TIME CPD Programme.

Participating Schools

• Grange Primary, Preston
• Lytham Hall Park Primary School, Lytham St Anne’s
• St Augustine’s Catholic Primary School, Preston
• St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, Anderton
• St Wilfrid’s RC Primary School, Longridge
• Willow Lane Primary School, Lancaster

Partnerships

HMDT Music worked with:

• Heritage Learning Lancashire – project management
• More Music
• Burnley Youth Theatre
• Atelier Arts

As well as several guest artists in a range of genres including Indian dance, puppetry and film.

Film: A celebration of the TIME Project

You can read the TIME Evaluation report HERE