DR NIGEL MATTHIAS, HEADTEACHER, KING’S ACADEMY LORD WILSON, UK; VISITING FELLOW, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON, UK
‘Tell me the story of a time when you were successful in school’: this simple prompt opened a window into the complex internal worlds of boys in an SEMH (social, emotional and mental health) specialist academy, revealing that their creativity is inextricably linked to emotional safety and tangible outcomes. While traditional arts often led to frustration, this study found that students thrived in low-stakes environments such as role-play, where they could experiment with identity without consequence, or in the higher-stakes logic of esports (electronic sports), where they demonstrated rapid thinking. These findings suggest that educators should consider non-traditional domains (Mumford, 2003), recognising that a student’s ability to, for example, modify a recipe or coordinate a digital team can constitute profound creative success.
Context and methodology
The research was undertaken in a specialist academy catering exclusively to boys aged 11 to 16 with diagnosed SEMH needs. This environment, characterised by high levels of trauma-informed practice and a flexible curriculum, demands research methods capable of capturing the complexity and emotional sensitivity of participants’ lives.
To elicit the rich, nuanced data required, the study employed the biographical narrative interpretive method (BNIM). Developed by Schütze (1992) and Wengraf (2001), BNIM is a unique qualitative interviewing technique that encourages participants to tell their life stories in an unstructured, spontaneous narrative form, beginning with a single prompt, such as ‘Could you tell me the story of a time when you were successful at something new?‘.
The core of BNIM lies in its emphasis on the initial spontaneous narrative and the subsequent systematic probing for personal incident narratives (PINs). Unlike semi-structured interviews, BNIM avoids premature interpretation and instead allows the participant’s own sequence and salience of events to emerge, providing a window into the self-concept and internal logic of their experience (Hesketh, 2023). This method empowers vulnerable students to control the narrative, thereby reducing the perceived power imbalance inherent in traditional interview formats.
Ethical considerations and methodological adaptations
BNIM, while empowering, presents specific ethical challenges because the process of ‘pushing for PINs’ can sometimes lead to the emergence of sensitive or emotionally charged material (Moran et al., 2022). Furthermore, the strict BNIM non-interruption rule and the open-ended single-question introductory prompt can conflict with the ethical safety and expressive capacity of this vulnerable group, as silence can easily be misinterpreted as distress or judgement (Thompson and Tawell, 2017).
To mitigate these risks and adapt the methodology towards inclusive narrative research (Goodley and Clough, 2004), several ethical and methodological adjustments were implemented. The BNIM silence was modified by incorporating preparatory phases, such as the use of Social Stories, to familiarise participants with open-ended prompts (Gray, 2015). This adaptation enabled greater detail in the substantive phase of the interview. In addition, trust and rapport were built through interviews conducted by a researcher familiar to the pupils. Voluntary participation was secured with explicit, age-appropriate consent, and pupils were reminded at every stage of their right to pause, stop or withdraw any part of their narrative without penalty. Trauma-informed practice was implemented, meaning that the interviewer was trained in trauma-informed responses and had immediate access to school pastoral and mental health support.
Finally, anonymity was maintained, as all identifying details were pseudonymised. These measures ensured that the pursuit of rich narrative data was balanced with the paramount ethical responsibility of safeguarding students.
The utility of BNIM in a specialist setting
The foundational premise of BNIM is that its purpose is not to yield findings that are statistically generalisable to a wider population, but rather to facilitate a profound, context-specific understanding. While quantitative researchQuantitative research usually emphasises quantification in the collection and analysis of data. aims for breadth, BNIM deliberately opts for depth, a characteristic that makes it uniquely valuable for informing pedagogical adjustments in a special school context.
Although life narratives lack statistical generalisability, they offer invaluable utility and transferability for teachers – particularly those in a specialised setting – providing concrete insight into students’ lived realities. BNIM delivers a far deeper understanding of student trajectories than standardised assessments, uncovering the implicit processes shaping behaviour – for example, revealing a student’s withdrawal as a developed adaptive strategy rather than apathy.
The resulting qualitative richness enables the refinement of local pedagogical practice and in-house theory generation. If narratives consistently show ‘failure attribution’, then the school can immediately adjust feedback to focus on effort. Identifying recurring negative experiences during transitions can prompt the collective development of a new, tailored protocol. It can also foster empathy and help educators to critically scrutinise their own assumptions and biases, functioning as powerful professional development.
Findings
Analysis of the four biographical narratives revealed two distinct, non-traditional contexts for creative expression, both of which were deeply integrated into the pupils’ emotional and social worlds.
1.The power of ‘wearing someone else’s skin’: Improvisational role-play and deep conversation
Narratives focused on successful creative endeavours often centred on drama, specifically improvisation and role-play sessions, or deep, reflective social dialogue, rather than structured art or design tasks. The pupils described these environments as non-judgemental spaces that allowed them to experiment with identity and emotion without the real-world consequences of failure or conflict.
One participant, discussing a particularly successful drama session focused on resolving a conflict scenario, articulated the cognitive shift required by role-play: ‘When we do drama, it’s like wearing someone else’s skin for a bit. It’s easier to think “Why did they do that?” instead of just getting annoyed… making up the fight scenes is way better than actually fighting.’
This finding is extended by a participant who experienced a state of flow and high creative engagement in personal development (PD) lessons where the focus was on ‘deep conversations’ about real-life scenarios, social dynamics and relationships. In this context, the creative act serves as a safe rehearsal for complex social situations and a process of verbal problem-solving, echoing findings on the social-emotional benefits of drama-based interventions (Robinson and Crane, 2025). The PD lesson, like improvisation, became a relevant space where time ‘just shot by’ because the content meant that he ‘actually really enjoy[ed] it’ as he found flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1998).
2. Digital fluency and the logic of social media and esports
The second domain of creative success was found in digital fluency. The participants’ narratives regarding their gaming success and self-directed technical learning provided rich accounts of high-pressure, rapid problem-solving, planning and coordination. For these young people, digital environments are highly relevant platforms that validate their existing skills and provide a context where their digital fluency is a source of power.
One pupil passionately detailed the strategic demands of team-based gaming, framing it as a highly creative, logistical challenge:
People think it’s just playing games, but it’s not. We have to plan out our team on the map and which guns to use before the match even starts. If the enemy team does something weird, we have to change the plan in like, two seconds. That’s real quick thinking.
This narrative is strongly reinforced by another participant, who named his esports coursework as one of the achievements that he is most proud of having ‘created’ in school, describing its therapeutic benefits (Griffith, 2019). Furthermore, one pupil described using YouTube as a self-directed expert resource with which to acquire complex, technical skills in areas such as art (marbling), baking and model-making, allowing him to ‘learn… so many tips’ to execute his creative projects. This reframes ‘playing games’ and digital media consumption as a complex act of creative problem-solving and self-taught mastery.
3. The primacy of technical and practical mastery
A new, emergent theme identified across the four interviews is the high value placed on technical skills, practical application and tangible creation. Narratives of success consistently centred on vocational and culinary arts. One participant proudly discussed having certificates in plumbing, electrical work and bricklaying, viewing these as smart, future-proof skills. Likewise, a key creative achievement for another was baking a Victoria sponge and a pasta dish. This pupil demonstrated genuine creative experimentation by purposefully modifying a cookie recipe: ‘I just thought, “What if you do that?” And then I tried it and it worked really well.’
Conversely, traditional creative arts were associated with frustration and failure. One pupil’s history of breaking a clock and a dragon painting, due to low resilience, suggests that for these pupils, the cognitive and emotional struggle of creation must be validated by a clear, tangible and high-stakes outcome. Another recounted how his original complex creative idea was rejected for a simple ‘gold star’, illustrating how prescriptive tasks that stifle autonomy kill creative pride. The mastery of a system (whether the logic of esports or the process of baking) is viewed as the creative act itself.
Implications for teachers and school leaders
The narratives elicited through the BNIM method provide a powerful challenge to the traditional structure of creative education in SEMH settings. The findings suggest that focusing solely on conventional creative subjects (such as art or creative writing) is less impactful than leveraging creative processes across a range of relevant, often non-traditional domains.
The study argues for a radically contextual pedagogy. For pupils with SEMH needs, the development of creativity is inseparable from the management of their emotional world. Interventions must, therefore, be rooted in their unique concerns, anxieties and existing strengths. Teachers must shift their focus from output (a finished product) to process (the cognitive and emotional strategies employed). If a pupil demonstrates novel planning, rapid strategic adaptation and collaborative communication in a digital environment such as esports, or successfully modifies a complex recipe, then this constitutes a profound creative success, regardless of the lack of a traditional artefact. This perspective requires teachers to be flexible in their definition of creative achievement and to actively seek out platforms that are meaningful to the learners (Reitman et al., 2020).
Recommendations for teachers
Based on the rich qualitative data, the following specific recommendations can inform practice in SEMH and mainstream settings alike.
- Validate digital fluency as creative research by integrating self-directed, YouTube-led projects into the curriculum for technical or practical skill acquisition (for example, cooking, model-making, repair). These projects should be framed explicitly as high-level strategy, communication and creative problem-solving modules.
- Embed improvisation and deep dialogue, prioritising unscripted, improvisational drama and PD lessons with a focus on ‘deep conversation’ about real-life scenarios. These should be used as core tools for social skills and emotional literacy, focusing on the cognitive act of ‘wearing someone else’s skin’ and achieving flow through relevant social problem-solving.
- Prioritise technical and vocational creativity. This involves moving beyond the traditional subjects of art and creative writing and recognising that creative success for SEMH pupils may be found in areas such as vocational training (plumbing, electrical work) and culinary arts, as these areas provide the tangible outcomes necessary to validate effort and build resilience.
- Adopt BNIM-style questioning techniques in feedback sessions to gain diagnostic data. Instead of asking ‘What did you make?’, educators should ask ‘Could you tell me the story of how you started this task, what problems you had and how you fixed them?’. This simple shift validates the struggle and the internal mechanisms of creativity, rather than just the final product. Crucially, the aggregated evidence from these process narratives can reveal systemic curriculum barriers or unexpected pedagogical successes across an academy, offering a powerful, context-sensitive tool (alongside traditional quantitative metrics) for evaluating and improving the effectiveness of educational provision.
By adopting a radically contextual pedagogy that leverages digital fluency and experiential learning, teachers can transform the challenge of SEMH into an opportunity, ensuring that creative tasks are always rooted in the pupils’ unique lived experiences to foster genuine and powerful creative risk-taking.
