Teachers can:

Plan tasks and activities that give pupils opportunities to be creative.

Teach in a way that makes the most of pupils’ creativity – but the pitch of an activity must be right. Expectations too high = frustration and anxiety. Expectations too low = boredom.

When planning:
• Set a clear purpose for pupils’ work.
• Look for opportunities to promote creative responses in your existing schemes of work and lesson plans.
• Set clear learning objectives and build specific creativity objectives into planning; integrate these with subject-specific objectives.
• Structure a sequence of lessons.
• Share objectives with pupils.
• Plan for pupils to share their work with others.

Be clear about freedoms and constraints

• Give pupils opportunities to choose ways of working and to shape the process, direction of work or outcome.
• Use a range of learning styles.
• Give pupils a clear brief.

Fire pupils’ imagination through learning and experiences

• First-hand experiences through visits and contact with creative people.
• Use stimulating starting points eg artefacts, problems, stories with human interest, topical events.
• Make activities relevant to pupils’ lives.
• Build on what pupils find interesting and have already experienced both in and out of school.
• Look for opportunities to encourage pupils to apply their prior learning creatively.
• Give pupils opportunities to reflect on and share personal experiences and feelings.

Give pupils opportunities to work together

• Opportunities to work with others from their class, year group and different age groups.
• Structure collaborative activities – think about the groupings.
• Monitor the collaborative process carefully.
• Address the needs of individuals in each group.

Establish criteria for success

Capitalise on unexpected learning opportunities

Ask open ended questions and encourage critical reflection

Regularly review work in progress