This article has been published as part of the Rethinking Curriculum project, kindly funded by The Helen Hamlyn Trust.
This article has been published as part of the Rethinking Curriculum project, kindly funded by The Helen Hamlyn Trust.
By Jenna Crittenden, Teacher Advocacy Lead at the Chartered College of Teaching
This is a collection of research articles, case studies, webinars and other relevant resources to develop your understanding of creative approaches further. We have ensured that these are open access or available to members of The Chartered College of Teaching.
The resources collated here are not designed to provide a recipe for what you should do. Some of the articles will also present opposing viewpoints, and ones which may contradict your own viewpoint or experience. They aim to provoke thought, debate and discussion. We encourage you to read and appraise the literature to make informed decisions based on your local context, professional experience and other available research evidence.
Resources from the Chartered College of Teaching
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What is creativity and why is it important?
Bill Lucas explains why creativity is essential as it enables students to think divergently, adapt to change, and develop original ideas—skills that are increasingly vital in a rapidly evolving world where traditional approaches no longer suffice: Schools as testbeds for our vital creativity
This article explores the tension between playful, disruptive creativity and creativity grounded in knowledge and discipline, arguing that both are essential and should coexist in education to foster innovation while maintaining academic rigour: Creativity: should it be disruptive and playful or bounded by knowledge and discipline?
This article argues that deep subject expertise and creative pedagogy are mutually reinforcing, strengthening teacher wellbeing, promoting student agency and supporting a sustainable professional identity: Reclaiming purpose: Disciplinary expertise and creative pedagogy as drivers of sustainable teaching
Drawing on policy frameworks such as the Initial Teacher TrainingAbbreviated to ITT, the period of academic study and time in school leading to Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) and Early Career Framework, alongside recent empirical and conceptual research on AI and creativity, this article makes a case for nurturing creative agency, critical thinking and imaginative exploration as core pedagogical priorities: Don’t let the bots do the thinking: Reclaiming creativity and creative skills in an AI world : My College
Models of creativity
The article explores how primary and secondary educators can foster creativity by embedding the Five Creative Habits of Mind—being inquisitive, imaginative, persistent, collaborative, and disciplined—into everyday teaching, empowering students to think creatively across all subjects and contexts: Teaching for creativity using the five creative habits of mind at primary and secondary
The article highlights how innovative leadership and recent research are helping reintroduce creative thinking into English schools, emphasising the role of school leaders in fostering a culture of creativity despite curriculum constraints: Leadership for creative thinking in schools: How current research and innovation is putting creativity back into schools in England
This case study highlights the content, design, implementation and structure of the professional development (PD) of teachers in the context of the flagship ‘Art of Learning’ programme, which aimed to support the development of learners’ executive functions through arts-based learning and to expand teachers’ use of creative pedagogies: Professional development for creative pedagogies: The Art of Learning as a model for practice and pedagogical renewal
This article examines transformative learning at the midpoint of SPACE to Flourish – a four-year professional learning programme for Early Years educators in London. The programme aims to boost educators’ confidence, self-efficacy and effectiveness in creative pedagogies and arts-based learning in order to enhance children’s creativity and flourishing: SPACE to Flourish: Cultivating children’s creativity through supporting pedagogy in professional learning – interim findings : My College
Learning design for creativity
This article challenges the traditional view of Bloom’s Taxonomy as a strict hierarchy, instead presenting it as a fluid framework in which creativity and knowledge are closely interconnected. It argues that secure, well-structured knowledge enables learners to think imaginatively and originally. Rather than positioning creativity as separate from or secondary to knowledge, the article highlights how deep understanding unlocks innovative thinking, framing creativity not only as an educational goal but as a product of meaningful learning: A quick guide to Bloom’s taxonomy and why knowledge and creativity fuel each other
This article argues that developing creativity in students is most effective when approached metacognitively—by helping learners reflect on their own thinking processes, integrate creative skills with domain knowledge, and apply them flexibly across contexts: A metacognitive approach to developing creativity
This article argues for embedding creative pedagogies within the curriculum as a means of improving pupil mental health: A joyful curriculum: Embedding creative practice to support pupils’ mental health : My College
This case study explores whether a simple, embedded creative routine could offer a low-burden, inclusive approach to supporting emotional regulation and readiness to learn within a mainstream classroom: Calm through creativity: Embedding daily creative habits to foster emotional regulation and wellbeing in primary classrooms
Assessment
This article addresses the growing concern over creativity’s marginalisation in England’s curriculum, revealing how emerging research and national initiatives are redefining it as a vital, teachable, and assessable skill essential for future-ready education: Teaching and assessing creativity in schools in England
This article, grounded in international research, introduces a robust framework that breaks down creative thinking into observable, teachable components—empowering educators to assess and nurture creativity with precision and purpose in the classroom: A framework for defining and assessing creative thinking
This article reviews evidence showing that generative artificial intelligence supports the shift from subject-based teaching to integrated curricula. It proposes the Originality and Creativity Index (OCi), a portfolio-based assessment framework designed to capture collective creativity and real-world educational impact beyond traditional standardised testing: Generative AI, integrated curricula and a new index for measuring creative and original learning : My College
Other articles of interest
This article highlights how purposeful use of technology in education can foster creativity, enhance metacognition, and support impactful, evidence-informed teaching practices: Inspiring creativity and measuring impact: the changing landscape of technology for learning
This article illustrates how digital technology in primary schools can foster creativity and strengthen community, showing that when used imaginatively—from puppet-led lessons to emoji check-ins—tech becomes a tool for connection, expression, and joyful learning: Creativity and community: Primary schools and the use of digital technology
This article argues that educators should deliberately structure AI use so that human intention, ownership and creative thinking remain central, protecting students’ imagination, authorship and independent learning: Creative fidelity: Keeping learners in charge of their ideas
Research articles and evidence-based guidance reports
Why creativity is important
This review is designed to help school leaders in England make creativity central to their students’ lives: Creative leadership to develop creativity and creative thinking in English schools A review of the evidence – Lucas B, Spencer E and Stoll L 2021 (pp. 2-7 provide a summary of what creativity is and pp. 8-11 provide an argument for why creativity is important in schools)
The Durham Commission convened to look at the role creativity and creative thinking should play in the education of young people: Durham Commission on Creativity and Education | Arts Council England 2019
In this paper, Professor Maciej Karwowski, challenged some of the myths around schools and creativity: Karwowski, M. (2022). School Does Not Kill Creativity. European Psychologist, 27(3), 263–275. Research summary can be found here.
As part of the Creativity Collaboratives pilot, the team gathered pupils’ views on the impact of Teaching for Creativity as the programme drew to a close: The importance of creativity in schools: pupil opinion report – Abigail D’Amore and Jennifer Raven – 2024
This chapter argues that art and play could be considered children’s ‘first languages’, and therefore make the case that they should be placed at the centre of a curriculum for young children: McArdle F and Wright SK (2014) First literacies: Art, creativity, play, constructive meaning-making. In: Barton G (ed) Literacy in the Arts: Retheorising Learning and Teaching. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, pp. 21–37.
This chapter explores the concept of creativity, examining a range of definitions and interpretations: Fisher R (2004) What is creativity? In: Fisher R and Williams M (eds) Unlocking Creativity: A Teacher’s Guide to Creativity Across the Curriculum. New York: David Fulton Publishers, pp. 6–21.
The study demonstrates that incorporating cooperative learning—an approach that fosters creativity through collaboration and problem-solving—significantly boosts middle school students’ achievement in mathematics compared to traditional methods: Shaheen R (2010) Creativity and education. Creative Education 1: 166–169.
The paper suggests teachers’ creative agency and wellbeing can develop through a complementary process, rooted in creativity: Anderson RC, Katz-Buonincontro J, Livie M, Land J, Beard N, Bousselot T and Schuhe G (2022) Reinvigorating the Desire to Teach: Teacher Professional Development for Creativity, Agency, Stress Reduction, and Wellbeing. Front. Educ. 7:848005. Research summary can be found here.
The Times Education Commission report argues that to foster creativity in schools, the curriculum must embed creative thinking and problem-solving across every subject, teachers should have a national entitlement to professional development in creative pedagogies—delivered by a new Creative Education Institute—and assessment frameworks should be revised to value creative outputs such as portfolios, collaborative design challenges and reflective journals alongside traditional exams: Times Education Commission final report.pdf and Times Education Commission: ‘Bringing out the best’ – House of Lords Library
Models of creativity
This report presents the ACER skill development framework for creative thinking: Heard, J., Ramalingam, D., Scoular, C., Anderson, P., & Duckworth, D. (2025). Creative thinking: Skill development framework. 2nd ed. Australian Council for Educational Research.
Researchers at the University of Sydney and the University of Auckland have developed a unique model for understanding students’ experience of creative school environments – the Creative Schools Index (CSI): Ginns, P., Freebody, K., Anderson, M., & O’Connor, P. (2021). Student experience of creativity in Australian high school classrooms: A componential model. Learning and Individual Differences, 91, 102057. Research summary can be found here
In this report, the Center for Curriculum Redesign offers a model of curriculum and offers school and system leaders some key messages for embedding competencies such as creativity in a wide range of subjects: Dunn, K. et al. (2021) Massachusetts: Center for Curriculum Redesign. Embedding competencies within disciplines: Deliberately, explicitly and systematically Research summary can be found here.
The CES Report 2022 highlights global efforts to embed creative thinking in education through curriculum reform, innovative assessment, and teacher development, while urging stronger action to bridge policy and classroom practice. Lucas B (2022) Creative thinking in schools across the world. Available: GIOCT&OECD 2022 世界创造力峰会
This article explores how educational leaders can foster school cultures that support and sustain creativity: Lucas, Spencer and Stoll 2021 Leadership for Creativity | CCE
Learning design for creativity
This NEW website tool, designed by UCL and the University of Exeter, showcases action research projects and resources focused on developing creativity in education: Home > Creativity Action Research Resource
This paper reviews empirical studies undertaken between 2006 and 2022. The authors seek to understand how teachers can focus more intentionally on developing creativity in pupils: Bullard, A. and Bahar, A. (2023). Journal of Creativity, 33:1. Common barriers in teaching for creativity in K-12 classrooms: A literature review. Research summary can be found here.
This paper reports findings of an exploratory study to identify what characterises ‘possibility thinking’ in young children’s learning experiences and how teachers’ pedagogical practice fosters this critical aspect of creativity: Cremin T, Burnard P and Craft A (2006) Pedagogy and possibility thinking in the Early Years. Thinking Skills and Creativity 1(2): 108–119.
In 2011, a team of researchers were commissioned by Learning and Teaching Scotland to research on environments in school which are conducive to the cultivation of creativity: Davies, D., Jindal-Snape, D., Collier, C., Digby, R., Hay, P., & Howe, A. (2013). Creative Learning Environments in Education – A Systematic Literature Review. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 8, 80-91. Research summary can be found here.
This paper outlines an exploratory study examining the feasibility of integrating Creative Thinking into five subjects at Key Stages 2 and 3 over the course of one term with a cohort of teachers drawn from a wide range of schools in England: Krstic, S. (2024). Putting Creative Thinking at the core of the English school curriculum: An exploratory study. London: Australian Council for Educational Research UK. Research summary can be found here.
The Creativity Collaboratives pilot (2021-2024) developed a national cohort of schools to test a range of innovative teaching practices to nurture creativity in pupils and embed teaching for creativity across the curriculum: The Creativity Collaboratives Pilot Phase report – Abigail D’Amore and Jennifer Raven – 2024
The article argues that standardised education undermines creativity and wellbeing, advocating instead for a self-regenerative curriculum that fosters experiential, collaborative, and cross-disciplinary learning: Creativity: the self-regenerative curriculum resource | Curriculum Perspectives
Assessment
Drawing on the literature exploring the assessment of creative thinking and promising practices in Western Australia and beyond, Bill Lucas, co-chair of the 2022 PISAThe Programme for International Student Assessment, a worldwide study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), intended to evaluate educational systems by measuring 15-year-old school students’ knowledge and skills Creative Thinking Test, offers step-by-step guidance for teachers keen to track the progression of student creativity in schools: Lucas2022FieldGuidetoassessingCreativeThinking.FORM-RA.pdf
PISA share how creative dispositions could be assessed: Thinking Outside the Box: The PISA 2022 Creative Thinking Assessment by OECD – Issuu
Other articles of interest
In this chapter, Craft argues that creativity in education should be understood not only as exceptional achievement but as an everyday capacity for ‘possibility thinking’, where learners explore ideas, ask questions and make choices. She emphasises that schools play a crucial role in nurturing this everyday creativity by creating environments that encourage curiosity, autonomy and imaginative engagement in learning: Craft A (2001) Little c creativity. In: Craft A, Jeffrey B and Leibling B (eds) Creativity in Education. London: Continuum, pp. 45–61.
This paper reports findings from an interpretive study of two primary schools in England, researching how they were maintaining pedagogy for creativity: Craft A, Cremin T, Hay P et al. (2013) Creative primary schools: Developing and maintaining pedagogy for creativity. Ethnography and Education 9(1): 16–34. DOI: 10.1080/17457823.2013.828474.
This paper identifies pedagogies of artists and argues that these could prove valuable to all teachers who are interested in fostering students’ creativity: Hall C and Thomson P (2016) Creativity in teaching: What can teachers learn from artists? Research Papers in Education.
OECD reports
The OECD worked with networks of schools and teachers in 11 countries to develop and trial a set of pedagogical resources that exemplify what it means to teach, learn and make progress in creativity and critical thinking in primary and secondary education: Fostering Students’ Creativity and Critical Thinking | OECD 2019
This illustrated brochure summarises the thinking underpinning the PISA 2022 creative thinking assessment and sets forth its design: Thinking Outside the Box: The PISA 2022 Creative Thinking Assessment by OECD
PISA 2022 assessed 15-year-old students’ capacity to think creatively. This report presents the outcomes of this: PISA 2022 Results (Volume III) | OECD – Full Report
- Executive summary can be found here
- Infographic can be found here
- Bill Lucas, co-chair of the Strategic Advisory Board of the PISA 2022 Creative Thinking Test, reflects on the PISA 2022 results.
This report unpacks the PISA 2022 results, analysing the content of creative responses across countries and economies: Creative Minds in Action | Students’ imagination and ideas in storytelling, design and problem solving tasks on the PISA test OECD 2025
Resources supporting curriculum design and development
This document from 2012 is now outdated but does share some ideas on how to develop a creative curriculum in a contextualised manner: Designing a creative contextualised primary curriculum – GOV.UK
This interim report from the Curriculum and Assessment Review includes recommendations for increased access to creative subjects and more opportunities for students to develop creative skills: Curriculum and Assessment Review: interim report 2025
Explore the Welsh curriculum: Curriculum for Wales – Hwb. It is underpinned by four purposes, including developing ‘enterprising, creative contributors, ready to play a full part in life and work’.
Explore Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence: Experiences and outcomes report, which highlights the importance of creative education throughout. You may also wish to read Implementing Education Policies – Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence 2021. In this report, the OECD assesses the implementation of the Curriculum for Excellence, to understand how curricula are designed and implemented in schools, and to identify what can be improved to continue delivering quality learning for all students, including fostering creativity and creative thinking.
Northern Ireland’s Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment provides a range of resources to support practitioners with ‘Educating for Creativity’.
This report into the importance of creativity for STEAM urges embedding arts-infused, inquiry-based and design-led pedagogies across primary education to nurture young learners’ creative thinking, deepen conceptual understanding, and develop interdisciplinary skills from the start: bera-research-commission-report-steam.pdf
This paper explores the divergence between private and state education in England in their approach to creative education: Ashton, H., & Ashton, D. (2022). Creativity and the curriculum: educational apartheid in 21st Century England, a European outlier? International Journal of Cultural Policy, 29(4), 484–499.
Resources supporting classroom and enrichment activities
The Creativity Exchange provides a range of pedagogical practices and practical ideas to trial in your classroom and/or school to foster creativity. There is also an opportunity to share your own tried and tested approaches.
Blog posts
This blog post offers practical strategies for teachers to nurture and encourage creativity among primary school students: How to support and promote creativity in primary schools – THE EDUCATION HUB
Case studies
The Creativity Exchange provides a range of case studies to explore how other practitioners and schools have fostered creativity in their context. There is also an opportunity to share your own journey.
Schools involved in the Creativity Collaboratives Pilot Programme share approaches and outcomes when Teaching for Creativity in their context: Creativity Collaboratives pilot programme (see pp. 25-42)
Video and audio content
In this TED talk (animated by the RSA), creativity expert, Sir Ken Robinson, critiques the current education system (2010), championing a radical rethink of how our school systems cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence: Sir Ken Robinson: Changing education paradigms | TED Talk. Also available: RSA Animate – Changing Education Paradigms on Vimeo.
Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity: Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity? | TED Talk
Ollie Bray, Strategic Director at Education Scotland, is joined by Julia Fenby, Education Officer for Creativity at Education Scotland. They discuss the work that has happened around Creativity so far, emerging themes, next steps and what Creativity means for Scotland’s children and young people: The Curriculum Improvement Cycle mini podcast series: The Creativity episode
