'Creativity isn't an add-on. It must form a vital and integral part of every child's experience of school. Research has shown that, if it does, it can contribute to improved learning and increased standards across the school as a whole.'
So said education secretary Charles Clarke to head teachers at a conference at London's Barbican last month. Early years practitioners and teachers are unlikely to disagree with him.
But it would be understandable if they were sceptical about his commitment.
The last major report into the importance of creativity, which was commissioned by the Government and conducted by Professor Ken Robinson and his fellow members on the National Advisory Committee for Creative and Cultural Education (NACCCE) in 1999, was treated less than creatively by the then education secretary David Blunkett.
In response to the detailed recommendations for an overhaul of the national curriculum, the DfES promised that 'schools will be working with a more flexible national curriculum with greater emphasis on the need for creative and cultural education'.
In the eyes of most practitioners it amounted to no more than tinkering, because the constraints of the literacy and numeracy strategies identified by teachers in the sector as key obstacles to creative approaches remained.
The NACCCE's highly-regarded report, All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education, was quietly shelved.
Now, in the face of intense disquiet among parents, teachers and pupils over SATs, Mr Clarke is beating the drum for more creativity.But will it have the same hollow sound as last time? In his Barbican speech, Mr Clarke announced an extension of the Creative Partnerships launched last September with the Arts Council. However, the scheme is restricted to offering creative opportunities to children only in selected deprived areas of the UK. It is not the sweeping crusade for creativity envisaged in Professor Robinson's report.
Curriculum straitjacket
Bernadette Duffy, head of the Thomas Coram Centre in London, believes that significant advances have been made in the past four years and she welcomes the reaffirmation of the need for creativity contained in the recent Primary Strategy. She says, 'The lightening up of the SATs requirements will allow teachers to take risks. When people are feeling insecure they will overstructure things. Practitioners in the early years felt they had to deliver an hour of numeracy and literacy, instead of adopting a more flexible, creative approach.'
Early years consultant, author and trainer Marjorie Ouvry also detects 'a sense that things are opening up' after a period when the free choice which, by its very nature, creativity requires, was denied to children because of the curriculum straitjacket. This fostered, she says, 'a perception that education is a transmission of knowledge, rather than a negotiation between what the child brings and what the practitioner offers in terms of support'.
She explains, 'If children have a workshop approach and can go to an area where there are boxes of paints, paper, scissors and glue that really sticks, you'll find children have bags of creativity. But where the arts or crafts are cornered into an extra area of the curriculum and children are all asked to do a similar task, such as make caterpillars, then you are not going to get the space in the child's imagination for individual interpretation.'
As a governor of the Clyde Early Years Centre in Deptford, London, Ms Ouvry has seen children making creative use of the building plans posted up in the centre as it undergoes expansion. 'They have been matching the plans to their own experiences of the setting,' she says.
But she stresses that each child has their own way of being creative. 'Some children are visual, some do it through music, some through dance, some recreating in play and drama. You can't say: "Today you are going to be visual, all of you". Children are too idiosyncratic for that.'
Mary-Jane Drummond, a lecturer in education at Cambridge University who specialises in the early years, has seen few signs of a shift towards more creativity. 'I have visited a lot of reception classes recently and I see very little creativity. I don't see children engaging spontaneously in drawing, painting or clay work. I see them doing tasks that have been assigned to them and designed by the teacher,' she says.
She advocates more visits by reception class teachers to 'first-class nursery settings' to see 'how children design their own curriculum'.
Resurgence of interest
Artist and early years consultant Gill Hickman feels encouraged by the work she has done with children and now parents at the Clyde Centre and the numbers of early years practitioners flocking to courses she conducts at the Institute of Education. She now sees 'a great resurgence of interest in creativity'.
She says, 'People realise that the curriculum is too dry and boring and that children will grow up with an imbalance in their learning unless we address it now. Creativity is central to what all young children do. It's so much a part of who they are, how they represent and understand the world.'
Carol Traynor, former head of St Boniface Primary School in Salford and a member of the NACCCE, says that in compiling its report the committee spoke to theatre companies and artists anxious to become involved in creative work in schools. She says that drawing on their expertise was particularly important in primary schools, where such specialist skills might be less likely to be found. Strict adherence to the literacy and numeracy strategies had stifled creativity, marginalising activities like music which, she believes, is 'important for learning to read because children learn to follow a rhythm'.
Trailblazer centres
The Kids' Clubs Network, in conjunction with think-tank Demos and the Campaign for Learning, has launched an initiative called Curiosity and Imagination to encourage creative approaches across a whole range of settings, from nurseries and schools to museums and arts centres. KCN chief executive Anne Longfield says there is 'a real thirst among people who want to look at more creative ways to work with children, to help them learn in a more dynamic way'.
Curiosity and Imagination aims to build 'a network for people who are delivering creative, open-ended, child-centred learning experiences', according to programme manager Alison Coles. Dedicated trailblazer centres are being set up, including one at the Horniman museum in south London and another at Stratford, east London. The Horniman Hands On Base is packed with ethnographic, musical and historical objects, 'giving children a unique insight into world cultures and the natural environment', says Alison Coles. Meanwhile, Stratford's Discover Centre is devoted to story building, and an evaluation of its ties with local primary schools, says Ms Coles, has found that teachers are noting that 'children who hadn't shown much creative spark before are suddenly coming alive'.
For Bernadette Duffy, fostering this creative spark is important because a child's ability to think and be imaginative has 'an impact on their cognitive development, on their social and emotional development, on their sense of self-esteem'.
But if Mr Clarke is to pay more than lip-service to creativity, most practitioners believe he must scrap SATs at seven. Early years consultant Margaret Edgington insists there must also be radical action to overhaul the teacher training system. She says, 'Younger teachers coming out of college have not been taught to be creative themselves. Maybe it's time we had a creativity strategy.'
CASE STUDY: BREARLEY NURSERY SCHOOL
The Brearley Nursery School in Birmingham has a proven track record of using creative approaches to provide the building blocks for children's early learning.
'We encourage the children to use all their senses because that creates a better understanding and do a lot of observational work through painting, drawing and sculpture,' says Ceri Howell, who became head earlier this year after working at the Worcester-based Centre for Research and Early Childhood.
An artist is currently working with the under-threes in a project about reflection and shadows, while a member of staff, who is also a professional dancer, has been helping them develop their creativity through dance.
The nursery, which has beacon status and sends a member of staff to local primary schools and other nurseries to share its expertise, also uses computers, digital cameras, overhead projectors and light tables and has just completed a project with Severn Trent Water to create a peat garden.
Ceri Howell says the nursery draws on the Reggio Emilia method. She explains: 'We show the children that understanding the world is not enough, you must see it, touch it, live in its presence. It's the process children are going through that is the key, not the final product.'
