About Ignite!
The difference we make; the change we bring about through our work…
Ignite! recognises the importance of developing the skills, insights and confidence in children, young people and their families and communities, to enable them to respond to the challenges and opportunities of our rapidly changing modern world. Our work, therefore, is designed to effect the following changes in perceptions, attitudes and confidence among all who come into contact with Ignite! and its programmes:
Ignite! recognises the importance of developing the skills, insights and confidence in children, young people and their families and communities, to enable them to respond to the challenges and opportunities of our rapidly changing modern world. Our work, therefore, is designed to effect the following changes in perceptions, attitudes and confidence among all who come into contact with Ignite! and its programmes:
- more happy and confident learners
- more families and communities who can learn together
- wider recognition of the value of creativity and its impact on our well-being
- wider recognition that not all change can be measured
- more opportunities for learners to be architects of their own personal creative development
Why?
The majority of young people now entering the education system will eventually take up jobs that haven’t been invented yet; and most of them will change jobs between 12 and 20 times in their working lives. They will lead changes in a world that we can only imagine. The solutions they find to the challenges of the time will require a combination of skills, knowledge and imagination.
Many of the solutions and opportunities of the future will be found in the application of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects, but without imagination and creativity we will merely repeat the mistakes of the past.
Ignite! believes that creativity underpins all learning disciplines. We work to help young people in particular reveal and discover and then exercise their creative thinking capacities.
We believe that education in all its forms and structures has a responsibility to celebrate the cultural lives of young people, their families and communities now, as well as preparing them for the future.
For them to achieve their full potential in this rapidly changing environment, young people require new skills and attributes – resourcefulness, the ability to make connections, intuition, reflection and a preparedness to take risk.
We refer to these attributes as the characteristics of creativity:
All our projects and all our partnerships aim to translate this theory into practice that is innovative and sustainable. This in summary, is our unique approach and mission.
By revealing, encouraging and supporting the creative capacities of young people and giving them confidence to trust their innate creative thinking abilities, Ignite! proposes a radical re-think of the purpose and form of education and learning. We will continue to work directly with young people in structures and models of action research to test ways of identifying and supporting the creative characteristics of resilience, resourcefulness, reflection, and the capacities to make connections and take risks
The majority of young people now entering the education system will eventually take up jobs that haven’t been invented yet; and most of them will change jobs between 12 and 20 times in their working lives. They will lead changes in a world that we can only imagine. The solutions they find to the challenges of the time will require a combination of skills, knowledge and imagination.
Many of the solutions and opportunities of the future will be found in the application of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects, but without imagination and creativity we will merely repeat the mistakes of the past.
Ignite! believes that creativity underpins all learning disciplines. We work to help young people in particular reveal and discover and then exercise their creative thinking capacities.
We believe that education in all its forms and structures has a responsibility to celebrate the cultural lives of young people, their families and communities now, as well as preparing them for the future.
For them to achieve their full potential in this rapidly changing environment, young people require new skills and attributes – resourcefulness, the ability to make connections, intuition, reflection and a preparedness to take risk.
We refer to these attributes as the characteristics of creativity:
- Resilience – the capacity to tolerate confusion and ambiguity and to learn through trial and error;
- Resourcefulness – knowing what to do when you don’t know what to do, and having different thinking strategies;
- Reflection – being able to observe and document your own thinking;
- Relationships – the capacities to see and make connections, and develop more than one meaning or possibility;
- Risk-taking – the appetite for challenge, developing an eclectic curiosity and exploring new unfamiliar territory
All our projects and all our partnerships aim to translate this theory into practice that is innovative and sustainable. This in summary, is our unique approach and mission.
By revealing, encouraging and supporting the creative capacities of young people and giving them confidence to trust their innate creative thinking abilities, Ignite! proposes a radical re-think of the purpose and form of education and learning. We will continue to work directly with young people in structures and models of action research to test ways of identifying and supporting the creative characteristics of resilience, resourcefulness, reflection, and the capacities to make connections and take risks