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Creative thinking

FEBRUARY 2009

Queensland schools

The year will celebrate creativity in our classrooms and give teachers and students new opportunities to develop their creative skills.

Highlights include the Twilight Conferences, a series of online events offering strategies to help teachers develop students' creativity; three Creative Challenges for middle to senior students in which they'll explore creativity through themed interdisciplinary activities; and the Ambassadors Program, which involves creative leaders sharing their expertise with teachers and students.

The Department of Education, Training and the Arts has a proud history of incorporating creative and innovative thinking in our schools.

Bright idea

For more than a decade, Brisbane's Buranda State School has been teaching students to think outside the square by giving them lessons in philosophy. The internationally recognised program has been so successful that philosophy was recently added as a subject towards a Bachelor of Education degree at the Queensland University of Technology. A number of other Queensland state schools, including several high schools, also teach philosophy.

Custom-made

Specialist schools that cater for the needs of students and industry - now that's creative thinking. Whether it's through the Queensland Academies for high-achieving Years 10 to 12 students in the areas of science, mathematics and technology, creative industries and health sciences or the gateway schools in aviation and aerospace, minerals and energy, wine tourism and other industries, Queensland students are, more than ever, being given direct pathways to a range of careers.

Sounding off

Other states envy Queensland's instrumental music program, which was introduced in 1971 and now boasts more than 400 instrumental music instructors teaching more than 50,000 students across the state. It's one of the reasons why peak body Australian Major Performing Arts Group said Queensland leads the nation in nurturing artistic talent and creative thinking. Our students showcase their musical talent in a range of departmental programs such as Fanfare, which started in 1985, and Creative Generation.

We have the technology

Ever since Queensland first used radio as a teaching aid in the 1920s and 30s, our schools have been early and creative adopters of technology. In 2002 the department's e-learning environment, The Learning Place, was launched to give teachers a one-stop-shop for online learning and curriculum resources. In 2009, the range of online materials for students will increase with the release of the FutureFit 21C - educating the global citizen framework, which will support students to build their skills and understandings to be healthy, democratic, creative, informed and eco-citizens.

www.yearofcreativity.deta.qld.gov.au