Professor Bill Lucas, Director of the Centre for Real-World Learning at the University of Winchester, shares five key steps for schools and practitioners seeking to embed creativity in teaching and learning.

It’s 20 years since the landmark National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education report All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education was published. The report offered a simple definition of creativity: “Imaginative activity fashioned so as to produce outcomes that are both original and of value.” Two decades on and we are much clearer about the cultural and pedagogical changes necessary for creativity to be embedded in schools, so much so that PISA has made creative thinking the subject of a new test in 2021.

Closer to home, Wales is launching a new curriculum that gives a central place to creativity and the new Ofsted framework comes into force this year. Not traditionally associated with creativity, Ofsted’s encouragement to schools to think more widely about curriculum and to document their intent, implementation and impact is an opportunity to rethink the role of creativity in schools.

In this context, here are five key steps to consider:

1. Understand what creativity is

You might like to start by familiarising yourself with our model of creativity and its five habits:

2. Review your classroom culture

Look at these 10 statements and ask yourself how much your classroom encourages these:

• Learning is almost always framed by engaging questions which have no one right answer.
• There is space for activities that are curious, authentic, extended in length, sometimes beyond school, collaborative and reflective.
• There is opportunity for play and experimentation.
• There is opportunity for generative thought, where ideas are greeted openly.
• There is opportunity for critical reflection in a supportive environment.
• There is respect for difference and the creativity of others.
• Creative processes are visible and valued.
• Students are actively engaged, as co-designers.
• A range of assessment practices are integrated within teaching.
• Space is left for the unexpected.

10 of 10? Go to the top of the class! 5 out of 10? Encouraging. Just 2 or 3 out of 10? You’re out of the starting blocks but have a way to go yet…

3. Use signature pedagogies to embed creativity

A signature pedagogy is a teaching method which is explicitly connected to the desired outcome of any lesson. So if you want curious students you might choose problem-based learning. If you want pupils to be critically reflective, then philosophy for children might be a helpful approach. Or if persistence was your goal, then any number of growth mindset type approaches such as changing learner talk from “can’t” to “can’t yet” might work. Other useful methods include the use of case studies, deep questioning, authentic tasks, a focus on the design process, enquiry-led teaching and deliberate practice.

4. Use split screen teaching to embed creativity in every subject 

Split screen teaching, pioneered by my colleague Guy Claxton, invites teachers to describe two worlds, the disciplinary subject matter of their lesson and the aspect of creativity on which they are also focusing. Let’s say you were introducing a science activity to understand the properties of acids and bases and then pupils were to prepare a short demonstration for other pupils, who would in turn offer feedback to their peers on the effectiveness of their explanations. Or in a history lesson, students might be looking at the causes of the First World War at the same time as they are exploring aspects of critical thinking such as the use of primary sources of evidence.

In the imaginary split screen of the lesson and its objectives a teacher would take care to explain to the class that both the chemistry (acids and bases) and the creative thinking (giving and receiving feedback) objectives were equally important. 

Split screen teaching reminds us of the importance of embedding creative habits in the context of a subject. For example: history + critical reflection; scientific enquiry + appropriate cooperation; writing an argument in English + challenging assumptions. 

5. Use thinking routines

The use of visible thinking routines, well-documented by Harvard University’s Project Zero, is an invaluable way of moving from knowledge to creative habits. A routine such as Think-Puzzle-Explore embeds inquisitiveness, while Think-Pair-Share-Think provides routine opportunities for challenging assumptions and giving and receiving feedback.

Later this year the Durham Commission will make recommendations for ways in which school leaders and teachers can be supported in England. Now is the time to get determined and creative about giving all children the chance to develop their creativity at school.

Professor Bill Lucas is director of the Centre for Real-World Learning at the University of Winchester and co-chair of the strategic advisory group for the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)'s 2021 test of creative thinking. He is the author of many books on creativity and learning including, with Ellen Spencer, Teaching Creative Thinking: Developing learners who generate ideas and can think critically. He tweets at @LucasLearn