“The Teacher Development Day gave us an insight into the historical context of carnival. The ‘What is Creativity Session’ provided the staff with a great focus on the value of arts to promote learning across the curriculum.”
TEACHER DEVELOPMENT
HISTORY OF CARNIVAL & CREATIVE LEARNING POTENTIAL
In collaboration with Creative Elements, we delivered a series of professional development sessions for teachers at former Heritage of African Descendants Museum. We identified a number of specialist artists, whose cultural heritage and experience reflected the values and the objectives of the programme, to lead the cultural elements of the training day.
Internationally acclaimed Artistic Director Clary Salandy from Mahogany Arts explored the origins of carnival and the evolution of costume design from Africa to London. The deeper purpose and meaning behind carnival: a celebration of emancipation and freedom in African-Caribbean and African culture was revealed. The internationally acclaimed photographer and artist Charlie Phillips shared 'The History of the Steel Pan' and the role of Claudia Jones in establishing the Notting Hill Carnival in London.
Sarah Nunn, the creative learning expert, actively demonstrated how to plan and integrate the elements of carnival into literacy, numeracy, science, art and citizenship. This session was accompanied with exploration of the learning resource . Teachers TV featured the project on TTV News as a leading example of the government's community cohesion directive.