Term 2:
Civics and Citizenship:
- How preferential voting works
- Methods of researching and refining policies/commitments, and who they affect
- Creating advertising campaigns for political purposes and targeting specific audiences
- Understanding the wants and needs of an Australian electorate
Term 3:
Australia and Bushfire Management
- How to manage and balance the environment with human settlements, and ensure safety of people and animals when bushfires occur
- Develop action plans for residents in bushfire risk areas
Project overview:
Term 2: Students developed their understanding of the Australian electoral process by creating fictional political parties, identifying core values, and selecting policies to represent their platforms. They then participated in a mock election, culminating in an election day to determine the winning party. This process allowed students to begin with an aspirational “wishlist” of policies before critically evaluating the feasibility of each idea. As part of their campaign planning, students learned to prioritise, negotiate, and justify their choices—considering how they might persuade their peers, for example, to support a policy such as funding a new playground swing set.
Term 3: Using bushfire and flood management as our learning point, students explored the process for designing their own unique board game, right up to developing a playable prototype and testing it with family and school staff. Their designs had to focus on elements of bushfire and flood safety, in such a way that players of their games would learn better strategies and be better prepared for when disaster might strike.
How did we make the curriculum come alive?
For term 2, we put students in the role of political parties, so they had to take an active role in many aspects of the Australian political system. This taught them the elements of the HASS curriculum we were covering through direct involvement and engagement in the topics.
For term 3, the board game projects put students in the teaching position, whereby their games had to educate players about the chosen points of the curriculum, being bushfire and flood management and action plans. They say the best way to learn is to teach, so the aim with this project was to guide students to know enough about the topic such that they teach it to their own friend groups/communities, solidifying the knowledge in their own minds.
How did we make the 5 Habits of Learning come alive?
Throughout both projects we used the 5 Habits of Learning as prompts for questioning the activities or challenges. Reflection activities for each session got the students considering how they used the habits of learning, and aimed to make this visible to all students at all times. The Creative Community reflection activity we ran throughout term 3, and some of term 2, tasked the students with building structures, from bricks to animal habitats, which would reference learning habits they used during their creative schools sessions.
How did we activate student voice and learner agency?
Both projects positioned students in roles that extended beyond that of passive learners, inviting them to become decision-makers, creators, and advocates. In Term 2, students took on the role of active participants in a mock election campaign, developing fictional political parties that reflected their own values and perspectives. This enabled them to articulate their views on how the school environment could be improved, while also considering the needs and priorities of others.
Through the process of campaigning, students exercised agency by selecting and refining policies, negotiating priorities, and using persuasive techniques to convince their peers. Rather than simply learning about democratic processes, students experienced them firsthand, developing confidence in expressing opinions, influencing others, and understanding how individual voices can contribute to collective decision-making.
How did you develop creative and critical thinking skills in the students?
When the students were developing their policies for the mock political parties during term 2, they had to practice creative thinking while developing persuasive/promotional material, from posters to videos, to put their policies in a positive light for the potential voters. Critical thinking was applied when they had to consider the wants and needs of their community, not just their own personal desires for the policies, and adjust their promotional material accordingly.
Term 3 saw the students applying their creative and critical thinking abilities to the development and refinement of their board games. Creatively borrowing from their reference games, critically considering feedback from playtesting, and coming up with functioning game mechanics that could educate players on the fire and flood safety topics the games were meant to teach.
How did you link your project to the UN Sustainability goals?
In Term 2, SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions) was most directly addressed, with elements of SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities) also emerging through the project. As students developed their fictional political parties and policies, they were required to consider issues of fairness, equality, and value for their community. While initial ideas often reflected individual interests or imaginative “wish list” policies, ongoing discussion and critique encouraged students to evaluate the viability, relevance, and broader impact of their proposals. Through this process, students began to recognise how thoughtful policy choices and advocacy can support a more inclusive and equitable community, moving beyond personal preferences to collective benefit.
Term 3 – UN Sustainable Development Goal 11:
Term 3 aligned closely with SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), with a focus on bushfire and flood-safe communities. Students explored how cities and neighbourhoods can be designed and managed to reduce risk and improve resilience in the face of natural disasters. By designing board games that embedded principles of disaster preparedness and safety, students created educational resources intended to inform and engage others beyond their own classroom. This extended the impact of their learning, positioning students as contributors to community awareness and resilience-building.
WHAT WAS THE IMPACT?
Students:
Students experienced greater flexibility and autonomy across the curriculum topics explored. While many were already independent thinkers, some initially lacked creative bravery when given open-ended tasks. The Creative Schools program supported students to build confidence and independence through carefully scaffolded projects. In Term 2, students worked through a series of smaller, student-led tasks that progressively built towards a larger collective outcome—the mock election. In Term 3, students were given significant creative freedom to design their own board games, while working within clear parameters linked to bushfire and flood safety. This balance of structure and choice enabled students to take creative risks while remaining focused on learning outcomes.
Teacher:
The mock election provided a unique and unfamiliar approach to teaching the curriculum, offering a project style that Kirsti had not previously used. The board game project also sat outside her usual area of expertise; however, with collaborative support, her entire class produced thoughtful, sophisticated, and highly original board game designs. The projects broadened pedagogical approaches and demonstrated the value of creative, inquiry-led learning.
Creative Practitioner:
Despite students still developing their creative bravery, their capacity for autonomous work and their raw creativity was highly impressive. Facilitating these more challenging, student-led projects was deeply rewarding, as students increasingly took ownership of decision-making, problem-solving, and creative direction. This allowed the teacher and creative practitioner to step back at times, observing students confidently “run their own show.”
School Community:
Both major projects intentionally extended beyond the classroom to engage the wider school community. During the mock election, students and teachers participated as voters, responding to the parties developed and marketed by the students. In Term 3, school staff and parents were invited to support the board game playtesting process, strengthening school-wide engagement and authentic feedback.
Parents:
Parents were actively involved during the playtesting phase of the Term 3 board game project, allowing them to witness their children’s progress firsthand. A follow-up playtesting session invited parents to test revised versions of the games, highlighting students’ ability to reflect on feedback, refine their ideas, and demonstrate growth in both creative thinking and resilience.
Quotes
“Creative Schools is going really well. I’m very impressed with how the program is supporting us—not just through the professional learning, but by helping to build the capacity of our staff. That support aligns with the wider goals of our school’s vision and mission. What I mean is, we have a very clear idea of what we expect from our students as part of our vision of developing a balanced child. This comes from feedback we’ve received from staff, students, and the community. So yes, we value both academic and creative approaches. We’ve developed our own whole-school inquiry model, and the Creative Practitioners are helping staff embed creativity into that. It’s really about giving time and support to teachers, and of course the kids love it. They look forward to those sessions. Even the morning routines shift—students come in ready to stretch their thinking, and they’re using the language of creativity. Those small strategies make a big difference. Ultimately, it all comes back to what we believe in—that the most important thing is developing the whole child.” (Craig Mainard - Principal)
“Creative Schools has been really eye-opening—especially doing a curriculum area that can be quite dry for students, like the electoral process—but the kids are excited to do it. I would never have planned it this way on my own. When I’ve taught Civics and Citizenship in the past, it’s usually been pretty flat. But now they’re like, “Are we going to do some voting today?” One of our vocab words the other day was preferential—and they understood that it relates to voting. So there are cross-curricular connections coming in as well. It’s heightened the level of engagement— the learning is really sinking in. In the Creative Schools project we have also been focusing on the UN Sustainability Goals and connecting to local issues. Every year we do fire drills and evacuation practice at the school, and it’s always the same. It’s mundane. So we saw an opportunity to use our Creative Schools work to make something sustainable that can actually be used in future years—like videos that explain the process and spark more engagement. So when we prepare for fire drills, kids can be watching the videos in their buddy classrooms, and it actually means something. It’s not about reinventing everything, just making it smoother and more meaningful. Working with the Creative Practitioner has been great—he’s really pushed me out of my comfort zone. It’s great having someone to bounce ideas off.” (Kirsti Harris - Teacher)
“The students have been fantastic—very eager to chat about all sorts of things, open-minded, and always up for trying new ideas. This year, we’ve been exploring politics, which is quite different. I’ve touched on politics in previous years, but the teacher and I decided to really dive into it this term and bring in more creative elements to help the students think about politics in a more positive and accessible way. It’s been a lot of fun getting the students to think about the real impact politics can have, and how they can play a role in that. We’ve had them come up with their own policies, take part in little voting activities and, by the end of the term, they’ll present their own campaign pitches to another class and take part in a mock election. The policies they’re creating are ones that could actually be actioned in the school—ideas that would improve life for students, parents, teachers, and the wider community.” (Jake Bamford - Creative Practitioner)
“Creative Schools helps kids engage the part of the brain we don’t usually use at school, and I really like that. Creative Schools feels more free.” (Student)
“In Creative Schools, instead of maths or writing or spelling, we get to share our ideas. In normal lessons, we don’t really do that.” (Student)
.png)