Creativity in a Policy Vacuum:
‘An Investigation into the Understanding and Implementation of State
Guidance and Policy on Creativity in Education by Intending and
Newly Qualified Teachers’
Dr Sally Elton-Chalcraft
Dr Sue Cronin,
(presenting authors)
Prof Jeff Adams
Dr Sandra Hiett,
Dr Elizabeth Smears
Dr Grant Stanley
Dr Barbara Walsh
Aims of the Project
To investigate what trainee, newly
(NQTs), and recently qualified
teachers (RQTs) understand by the
National policy and guidelines on
creativity.
To understand if perceptions change over
time, and if so in what ways.
To know how trainees, newly and
recently qualified teachers enact
creative practices in the classroom.
To identify institutional (schools and
training providers) conditions
necessary to ensure beginning
teachers can be creative in their
classroom teaching.
To know what steps schools and training
colleges need to take to ensure
creative practices are sustained.
Scope of the project
A three year longitudinal project (2009-12) to
investigate the inculcation of creativity in beginning
teachers in the first three years of their career:
– Five universities in the NW of England
– Survey of 1105 trainee teachers
– 507 of those secondary subject specialist
– 36 volunteers for extended participation
This project was facilitated by ESRC funding for the
Teacher Education Network (TERN) and funded directly
by Esmee Fairbairn.
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Teacher Education in England is poised to undergo its most radical
change in nearly 30 years.
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A rapid shift from university led training to school led training is
currently taking place.
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The current draft National Curriculum seems to have moved away from
creative approaches to more formal subject focus.
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Many traditionally creative subjects are now under serious threat of
being marginalised or withdrawn from the curriculum.
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Slide
Research Context
Methodology: An phenomenographic approach, designed to explore the
participants perceptions and professional experience.
This posed a methodological question: how to creatively capture beginning
teachers’ understanding of creativity?
A solution: workshops using metaphors
• The research project used creative workshops and
interventions to help elicit rich responses from the
participants about their understanding of creativity.
• Photographs, drawings and diagrammatic form were used as a
catalyst to initiate discussion and discover key themes for
further exploration, by foregrounding the students’ creative
stories contained in their use of metaphors.
Drawing workshop
Emerging themes from the survey
Many respondents (all in the final phase of their ITE programme) chose
to include a qualitative statement when completing the
questionnaire. Through a process of open coding five themes
emerged from this data as follows:
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levels of confidence to deliver creativity within the curriculum.
prior experience shaping attitudes towards teaching for
creativity
influence of University experience on teaching for creativity
effect of school placements on teaching for creativity
expectations of their first teaching post in relation to creativity.
Example from the themes: ‘confidence’
“ I always try to approach teaching and learning from a creative
point of view, but do sometimes feel that it’s difficult to apply it to
all areas. I feel with more experience and the opportunity to teach
more creativity I will gain more confidence in my own capabilities.”
Primary PGCE
“I feel far more confident than I did at the beginning of my teaching,
however, I still do not feel entirely confident coming up with
appropriate levels of creativity to enrich my lessons” PGCE
Secondary
“I feel confident to take risks and allow different
opportunities for creative teaching and learning. I do feel
that modules at university have helped with this particularly
a module entitled 'ICT and Creativity’”
Many identified a strong connection between their subject
specialist knowledge and experience and their
preparedness to teach for creativity:
“My specialism at university of history has helped me
teach cross-curricular and more topic-based [projects]
allowing for creative sessions.” Primary PGCE
“I feel that my previous experience as an artist and
having completed a BTEC in Art and Design and a Fine Art
degree has prepared me with the tools and capabilities
for teaching and learning through creativity” Secondary
PGCE
Many students were keen to be creative and
teach for creativity – many cited their previous
experiences as good preparation for being
creative teachers
In the workshops their artwork shows their
fear that the shackles of schemes of work,
school constraints and lack of governmental
support which denied them the opportunity
to be creative and teach for creativity
New teachers increasingly focused on day to
day requirements of school and inspection
regimes; they are distancing themselves from
central governmental policy
Shift in practice over three years of the project
Early findings: disillusionment
• “National guidelines are not necessarily promoting creativity
in practice. They seem to be stifling it with the other policies
that are obviously coming to the forefront.”
• “But the government has just changed its policy so they have
the ability to get rid of teaches they don’t like and ruin careers
anyway with their new capability procedures.”
Early findings: the policy
vacuum and its consequences
• There is evidence from our study that this policy vacuum
appears to be creating a deeply entrenched dislocation of
teachers from policy.
• Government policy is now seen as unreliable, transient, and
overtly partisan – likely to change at any moment, so not
worth bothering with.
• Diligence and assiduous attention to guidance, formerly
common amongst our participants, and been replaced by
a cynicism and indifference to central policy in their
responses.
• Fear of failure appears to be in the ascendency, which
does not bode well for creativity in schools, as far as
some participants were concerned.
Creativity in policy and theory – but not
in practice?
“…seemed from university that they were teaching us all
these wonderful ways – we’ve learned how children
learn, we’ve learned how the brain develops, we’ve
learned how to be creative… and then we’ve learned that
in reality you have all the pressures of tests and
performance, that put this out of the window.”
“you have a teacher who is saying ‘I know the answer; can
you tell me the answer?’ then you are creating a group of
children who are just dependent on pleasing the teacher.”
Implications?
Discussion question:
• What do other HEIs in Britain think about
these issues?
• Are there differences /similarities in within
other countries in the UK or Europe?
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