Despite having an interest in game design, Robert Miller was on the fence about whether he wanted to pursue it as a potential career.
But thanks to an innovative project taking place at a Paisley school, the 16-year-old pupil was able to get a hands-on experience of bringing a game to life.
The Creative Industries course that Robert took part in is just one of many opportunities on offer to pupils as a result of the Castlehead High's unique partnership with The Glasgow School of Art (GSA).
Students have been reaping the benefits of learning at Scotland's first 'School of Creativity'; from new ways to engage with learning, developing valuable life skills such as critical thinking and problem solving and even opening their minds to potential future career paths.
Robert, who has now been accepted to study games design at West College Scotland, told The Gazette: "The Creative Industries course gave me a taste of game design by giving me the chance to design my own game as part of my course work – that really set my desire to do it in stone."
Speaking about the benefits of learning creatively at Castlehead, he said: "Having to work within certain criteria of a brief, whilst still having plenty of room for creativity has been great. We got to learn about lots of different careers in jewellery, interior design and game design and I found them all to be very interesting."
The Castlehead High and GSA partnership, which was first formed in 2017 as part of a unique collaboration between the GSA and Renfrewshire Council, aims to embed the benefits of creativity across the full curriculum, based on research showing that learning through arts and culture can improve life skills and attainment across all subjects.
This innovative approach to learning is already delivering tangible positive results, with Castlehead High's art department now the joint top performing art department in Renfrewshire compared to 2019, when it was ranked 10th out of 11 for Highers.
Of the 90 senior students leaving the school this summer, 13% will be moving on to study creative subjects such as journalism, game design, product design engineering, architecture, fine art, animation and tattoo artistry, to name a small selection.
Gemma Fraser, art and design teacher at Castlehead High and The GSA link, said: "We know that enabling pupils to learn through art and creativity can improve attainment in other areas like literacy and numeracy; so, while pupils are learning about something like sculpture or game design they are also developing skills and behaviour that empower them to do better in school.
"The aim is for every pupil at Castlehead to benefit from the scheme in some way whether it be through our S1-S3 pupils participating in Creativity Week or our senior pupils who opt to do the portfolio classes - usually pupils would have to go to Glasgow and pay a lot of money for those, but the GSA come here and offer them to our pupils for free.
"This isn't about getting these pupils to go to art school – it's about preparing them for the future. These skills are so important for jobs as a some of these kids will end up in careers that haven’t been invented yet, so they need creativity for future employment no matter what path they go down."
The school's second annual Creativity Week is taking place this week, from Tuesday, May 9 to Friday, May 12.
It will see more than 85% of S1-3 pupils participate in range of creative workshops or lessons with artists, GSA tutors, teachers from across the school curriculum and representatives from industry.
The workshops will cover everything from theme park design and fine art to poetry, jewellery making, engineering and architecture.
In addition to the annual Creativity Week, GSA tutors pay regular visits to the school to work on design-related projects with the pupils, who also receive regular trips to the art school to learn from GSA tutors in a studio-based environment.
Gordon Menzies, headteacher at Castlehead High, said the school tried to ensure that every pupil has the opportunity to succeed across their curriculum.
He added: "With creativity being at the heart of so many opportunities, it helps our pupils build confidence, embrace learning and become motivated to perform at their very best.
"It is amazing to see how a relatively simple but unique model like the one we have at Castlehead with the GSA can provide so many positive outcomes for our pupils, just by freeing up teacher time to enable staff to explore new ways to engage learners."
Castlehead High pupil Claudia Luque has been accepted to do Architecture at Edinburgh University after participating in the GSA portfolio class.
The 17-year-old said: "I enjoy all the creative subjects at school. I did Art, Technical, Creative Industries and Creative Thinking. Leaving school to go on and study architecture will allow me to combine the artistic and technical side of the subjects I enjoy.
"What I found most interesting about being involved in creative subjects at school is that there are lots of different creative careers in the creative sector that are fresh and new and interesting."
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