Creativity in Education

A couple of weeks ago I attended an interesting talk by one of our students about the importance of allowing children to express themselves creatively; now the latest issue of Education 3-13 brings together a collection of articles on the same topic. So what resources are available for the researcher in this area?

The answer is 'quite a few'! It's probably sensible to start with a look at All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education, the 1999 report which continues to be influential on subsequent efforts to promote creativity in education. Two years later the author Anna Craft produced An Analysis of Research and Literature on Creativity in Education, which is an excellent introduction for those who are new to the subject. 2003 then saw the publication of Ofsted's Expecting the Unexpected: Developing Creativity in Primary and Secondary Schools.

Clearly all of these reports have had an impact, as there are now two excellent websites which are dedicated to promoting creativity in education. Creativity: Find It, Promote It contains a mass of information including a database of useful documents, while Creativity in Education is a Scottish site with links to useful research and information about policy developments. Two further reports published last year - Nurturing Creativity in Young People and Emerging Good Practice in Promoting Creativity - should help to complete the picture.