Simon Taylor

4.46 ‘Thinking Differently’: Visual Artists’ Interventions Working with Children with SEND (Paper) – virtual

Simon Taylor – University of Worcester, UK – virtual

Abstract:

The ‘Thinking Differently’ Project explored how continuous interventions by visual artists into the curriculum can improve the educational attainment, self-confidence and wellbeing of young people with ‘special rights’ or special educational needs & disabilities (SEND). Using a theoretical framework based on the Reggio Approach and the ‘One Hundred Languages of Children’, the professional artists developed a socially-constructed and creative curriculum utilising a range of themed spaces or ‘ateliers’ – places for play and exploration. These ‘ateliers’ or spaces were developed collaboratively using the model of the artist’s studio and were co-constructed with specialist artist-teachers (‘atelieristas’) and the children themselves – an approach which is based on a creative, experimental and holistic approach to education and pedagogy inspired by Educational Psychologist Loris Malaguzzi (Cagliari et al, 2016). What is remarkable about these creative spaces or ‘potentiating environments’ (Claxton and Carr, 2004) is the combination of technology with traditional materials and themes, analogue and digital crafting.

This presentation will include visual documentation (photographs and videos) of the children’s participation and progress; evidence that through the visual and plastic arts, children can make their thinking visible (Cagliari et al, 2016).  The project was a partnership between Meadow Arts, University of Worcester and specialist arts-education charity House of Imagination. It was funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and has connected three SEND High Schools in England through a programme of collaborative CPD and an emerging community of practice (Wenger, 1998). The project findings have been significant with key themes including: importance of an ‘emergent curriculum’, dialogue with materials, social, emotional, mental health and wellbeing benefits for children with SEND, trusting the process, curiosity and imagination, children as researchers enquiring about the world.

Simon Taylor – Thinking Differently: how art can connect children to others