In 2000, the review of the national curriculum emphasised creativity as an important aim. The Secretary of State for Education and Skills asked QCA to follow up this review by investigating how schools can promote pupils' creativity through the national curriculum.

• What did we do?
• What did we learn?
• What next?

What did we do?

We focused on key stages 1, 2 and 3.

In the first year of the project, we looked at how other countries were promoting creativity. We looked at their policies and curriculum requirements, and analysed a wide range of literature and research findings.

In the second year, we worked with 120 teachers in England to investigate how they could develop pupils' creativity through their existing schemes of work and lesson plans. We adopted the definition of creativity in 'All our futures: Creativity, culture and education' (DfEE, 1999), a report from the National Advisory Committee (see What is creativity?). We also drew on the previous year's research and discussions with experts as a basis for the work with schools. We asked the teachers to:

• identify the most effective ways to plan for, and foster, pupils' creativity
• collect examples of pupils' creative thinking and behaviour
• decide how the learning environment can best support the creative process.

The teachers looked through their plans for a term and chose lessons that they thought had potential for promoting pupils' creativity. They then adjusted their planning to maximise this potential, recording what happened and collecting evidence of pupils' creativity. They considered whether they had changed their teaching approach, the classroom or the learning environment and reflected on what happened.

We used the teachers' experiences to help us develop a set of information sheets and examples for teachers: 'Creativity: Find it, promote it'. We sent these materials to 1,000 teachers, headteachers, advisers, teacher educators and other people who work with schools, and asked them to complete a questionnaire telling us what they thought of them. We refined the materials in the light of their feedback and this website is the result.

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What did we learn?

Initially, the teachers involved in the project had very specific views on how to promote pupils' creativity. Some thought that creativity arose from unplanned or unstructured activities. Others thought that activities such as role-play, visits and debates were the key. Many art and design and music teachers assumed (wrongly) that because their subjects involve a creative process, pupils were thinking and behaving creatively all the time.

As the project progressed, the teachers began to realise that creating something is not the same thing as being creative. They saw that being creative has as much to do with the quality of thought taking place and the process or journey as with what is ultimately produced. They also discovered that creativity can happen in extended project work, discussion and short question-and-answer sessions.

Often, teachers identified a creative moment in a lesson, a moment when there appeared to be a breakthrough in thinking. This was almost always the result of much hard work on the part of individuals or groups of pupils. Teachers also realised that creativity did not happen in a vacuum. Pupils needed subject-specific knowledge and skills for their creativity to flourish.

By the end of the project, all of the teachers agreed that:

• opportunities for creativity arise in all types of activities
• by making only minor adjustments to their lesson plans, they could promote creativity
• to teach creatively, they needed to feel confident in their skills and subject knowledge
• sharing practice with teachers of other subjects and age groups was helpful
• pupils can't be expected to think and behave creatively in every single lesson
• thinking and behaving creatively is not appropriate in all lessons.

Many of the teachers involved in the project also believe that if creative thinking and behaviour are to become part of pupils' life in school, they must be expected and valued by the school as a whole.

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What next?

We want to continue to learn from schools by:

• continuing to investigate how to promote pupils' creative thinking and behaviour
• learning from the creative ways that teachers and headteachers overcome obstacles in supporting a learning environment that promotes creativity
• developing the materials on this website by showing, for example, how ICT can be used to promote creativity and how 3- to 5-year-olds think and behave creatively.

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