Innovation Programmes

The school’s approach of developing creativity in our boys is to adapt and infuse many of the skills found in Odyssey of the Mind (OM) into our teaching of the curriculum. The teachers are taught various OM strategies such as verbal spontaneous, hands-on spontaneous and verbal and hands-on spontaneous problems. These strategies help the boys to express their ideas and suggestions without fear of criticism. It teaches the boys how to think divergently and rewards thinking outside of the box. Teachers also use their Professional Learning Communities (PLC) time to learn about creativity and curriculum innovation.

OM is one of the programmes in ACS(P) which develops creativity in our boys. It teaches them to learn creative problem-solving skills that will provide them with the ability to overcome problems both big and small while having fun in the process. Each year, five new competitive problems are presented for the teams to solve. These long-term problems are solved over weeks and months.

As a CCA in ACS(P), a team of five to seven boys get together to identify challenges and think creatively to solve those problems. Some of the problems are more technical in nature, while others are artistic or performance based. Each long-term problem rewards ‘Style’ in the solution. This helps to teach the boys that they should not simply try to solve problems but take the next step of enhancing their solutions and present their solution with other teams. At the national and international competitions, the teams are also presented with ‘spontaneous’ problems to solve. The combination of long-term problem-solving, Style, and spontaneous problem-solving goes towards to develop an ACSian of capability and creativity.

More details and benefits of the program can be found here:

http://www.odysseyofthemind.com/learn_more.php