EXCITE! Launch

SEI is launching a new Community Interest company EXCITE! enterprise, to support its work in education and the third sector.

EXCITE! supports children and teachers to tap into their creative potential and engage more deeply in their learning. We help them to work collaboratively together, to transform themselves and their communities. We believe that developing a young person's creative abilities is vital to equipping them to face future challenges and develop an entrepreneurial spirit that will enable them to successfully respond inventively to life’s challenges. The school environment and experience is critical to developing self-confident creative entrepreneurs and lifelong learners. As Guy Claxton puts it: “Creativity is learning at its deepest and most powerful".

The EXCITE! programme currently develops two specific aspects: Teaching Creatively - 'teachers using imaginative approaches to make learning more interesting, exciting and effective' (Teacher Creativity) and Teaching for Creativity 'forms of teaching that are intended to develop young people's own creative thinking or behaviour' (Student Creativity).

EXCITE! will deliver a range of tailored programmes including Train-the trainer courses to Advanced Skills Teachers, Head Teachers and local authority advisors as well as running creativity INSET sessions directly in schools.

Independent research, conducted by the Open University Centre for Research in Education and Education Technology, assessed the effects of providing creativity training for all the staff of one school in Norfolk and found
that a business model of creativity training (Synectics) translated effectively to the world of education. The results were unequivocal and concluded that EXCITE! training had an immediate and profound impact at both a personal and an organizational level, both throughout the period of the study and following it.

For further information please email: excite.education@googlemail.com