PROGRESSION IN STUDENT CREATIVITY IN SCHOOL

Abstract

- Creativity is widely accepted as being an important outcome of
schooling. Yet there are many different views about what it is, how best it
can be cultivated in young people and whether or how it should be assessed.
And in many national curricula creativity is only implicitly acknowledged
and seldom precisely defined. This paper offers a five dimensional definition
of creativity which has been trialled by teachers in two field trials in schools
in England. The paper suggests a theoretical underpinning for defining and
assessing creativity along with a number of practical suggestions as to how
creativity can be developed and tracked in schools. Two clear benefits of
assessing progress in the development of creativity are identified: 1) teachers
are able to be more precise and confident in developing young peoples
creativity, and 2) learners are better able to understand what it is to be
creative (and to use this understanding to record evidence of their progress).
The result would seem to be a greater likelihood that learners can display
the full range of their creative dispositions in a wide variety of contexts.