Background
The only community girls’ school in Hammersmith & Fulham, Fulham Cross Girls School is a language college, committed to supporting its students to become self-aware and confident global citizens. It also aims to empower the girls to take full advantage of the educational opportunities on offer. Both the school’s Creative Partnerships projects last year were a reflection of these objectives and focused on promoting a love of learning, increased creativity across the curriculum and developing and sustaining student voice.
Creative Partnerships is the Government's flagship creative learning programme, designed to develop the skills of young people across England, raising their aspirations and achievements, and opening up more opportunities for their futures. This world-leading programme is transforming teaching and learning across the curriculum. The Murder Mystery Project is just one of the many long-term partnerships between schools and creative professionals supported financially and operationally by Creative Partnerships.
Carole Morrison and Tamzin Barford, of Creative Partnerships London West, have been forging relationships with Assistant Head Suzanne Parrott and the school across several projects; cementing the role of creativity within education at Fulham Cross. After in depth discussion with the school about their educational requirements it was Carole who approached Labyrinth Pathways with the idea of creating a Cross Curricular programme for the school. Not only would the project help young people develop the skills they need to perform well in exams and extra-curricular activities, but also in the workplace and wider society. Creative Partnerships would act as a broker in the relationship between Fulham Cross and Labyrinth Pathways from the beginning introduction to the end of the project.
Labyrinth Pathways is Labyrinth Theatre’s not-for-profit educational arm and is concerned with using theatre practice within cutting edge educational projects. The Forensic Science Murder Mystery programme was originally developed in 2006 by Labyrinth Theatre for Creative Partners for Progression (a Creative Partnerships and Aimhigher programme). It was developed primarily to engage a cohort of year 9 pupils in science and maths. Additionally, it sought to help young people to understand the connections between science and other subjects as well as science and the real world. The project was initially run in Stoke Damerel School in Plymouth in May 2006.
Whilst initially devised to focus on science and maths, it was found during the delivery of the project that it provided for a great deal of cross curricular work. Science, Maths, Art, Drama, Creative Writing, ICT and PSHE are just some of the subjects that young people found themselves actively engaged with during the project. Furthermore because of the drama and team working, the programme increased levels of self confidence, attendance, engagement, aspiration and behaviour.
The success of the project was recognised both by the school and Creative Partnerships Plymouth. Labyrinth Theatre was keen to be able to build on the successes of the model again in another educational setting. In late 2007 Labyrinth was approached by Creative Partnerships London West and asked to suggest how the concept could be used to answer a brief to pilot a cross curricular approach to learning at Fulham Cross Girls School.
