The document discusses developing creativity in schools. It argues that creativity is innate in all people and can be taught. It lays out 12 design principles for schools to develop students' and teachers' creative capacities. These principles guide the RSA's work with a group of schools in the UK to implement programs that help students turn their ideas into action and encourage teachers to be innovative. The goal is to close the "creativity gap" so all students have opportunities to develop their creative abilities.

1. OriginalthinkingWiththerightsupportandstructure,allschoolscan–and
should–teachcreativity,saystheRSA’sRoisinEllison
T
he RSA’s mission – to enrich
society through ideas and action
– is based on our concept of 21st
Century Enlightenment. We
believe that many more people have
the desire and the tools to turn their ideas into
action and, when supported to do this, they will
have a chance to make a unique and valuable
contribution to society. We call this the ‘Power
to Create’.
The sheer scale and complexity of the
challenges that societies now face are forcing
a shift in understanding about what sort of
solutions we need. Global issues such as climate
change, an ageing population, demographic
shifts and deep inequality all require
imaginative problem-solving with single,
simple interventions no longer effective. As
such, original ideas are in greater demand – and
yet it’s clear that a vast resource of potential
remains untapped.
We believe that the resources needed to
capture this potential are becoming more
accessible – for example, developments in
technology are providing new opportunities
and the internet is enabling easy access to
information and tools for communicating,
trading and collaborating. In both the world
of work and people’s everyday lives, dramatic
change is happening, creating a rising demand
for more creative citizens.
Closing the gap
Our paper, Giving Schools the Power to Create:
developing creative capacities in leaners and
teachers, lays out how school systems can best
be designed to develop all students so that
young people are better equipped to succeed.
We also look at how best we can recruit, train
and retain resourceful teachers who will have
the motivation and opportunities to practice
disciplined innovation and inquiry-based
teaching. Lastly, we look at how we can best
transform public, professional and political
understanding and attitudes, so that families,
schools, workplaces and other learning
institutions prioritise the development of
creative capacities. All of these challenges are
addressed through our 12 Design Principles.
However, there are clear barriers and
inequalities in the way of this; not every person
or every community has equal resources,
confidence or support to live a creative life. The
Power to Create is unevenly distributed. As
Mutual understanding
Working directly with these schools gives the
RSA insight into which areas of policy need
exploring, providing the CLD team with both
inspiration for and reality checks on new ideas
and thinking. For the schools, their relationship
with the RSA provides them with opportunities
to participate in research and innovation
and access networks that benefit students
and teachers. Students develop their creative
capacities through programmes that enable
them to turn their ideas into action – from
student leadership, to enterprise opportunities,
to the RSA Pupil Design Awards. Teachers
are given the opportunity to be creative and
28 TEACHWIRE.NET/SECONDARY
such, the Creative Learning and Development
(CLD) team at the RSA wants to close the
creativity gap – between those who are have
the power to make the most of the creative
opportunities that the 21st century offers,
and those who are locked out due to personal,
cultural and structural reasons. Unless we
achieve this, our principles could end up merely
empowering the already empowered.
Our distinctive approach is both practical
and research-based. The report shows how our
unique relationship with a group of schools in
the West Midlands, the Family of Academies,
is helping us to put these into practice. For
example, as highlighted in the case study of
our tenth principle – design tough-minded
evaluation processes that aim to understand,
rather than demonstrate, the impact of specific
interventions – the RSA Academies Teaching
School Alliance led on an esteemed project with
the RSA, Research Rich Schools. The outcome
was an online toolkit that supports teachers
to build a research culture in their school.
This also supports the BERA-RSA Inquiry
on Research and Teacher Education report,
putting the RSA’s research into action.

2. OPINION | creativity
ABOUTTHEAUTHOR
RoisinEllisonisprogrammecoordinatorfor
RSAAcademies.Roisinleadsonconnecting
studentsandschoolstaffintheFamilyof
Academiestopeople,placesandissues
beyondtheschoolgates.Sheco-authoredtheoriginal
reportfortheRooseveltInstitute‘CreativeSchoolsfor
aThrivingEconomy’withtheRSADirectorofCreative
LearningandDevelopment(Roisin.Ellison@rsa.org.uk)
TEACHWIRE.NET/SECONDARY 29
Future vision
Along with the problem of definition is the
subtle political opposition to creativity. It is
rarely argued by politicians that creativity is
an undesired outcome; more often posited
is that creativity cannot be taught, or that
the development of creative capacities will
happen of its own accord through a high quality
traditional knowledge-centric approach to
learning. Two decades of an increased culture
of ‘performativity’ – high-stakes testing,
performance management and accountability
– has not helped with this, resulting in schools
struggling to prioritise creativity amongst its
students or teachers.
Despite this, there is an emerging consensus,
as outlined in a 2014 WISE paper by
Abadzi, Martelli and Primativo, that
creativity is innate in all of us and
learnable in different ways.
Past discussions focused
on an ‘elitist’ view of the
concept, posing it as a
special and rare quality
reserved for a select
number of geniuses who
have made a difference
to the world. However,
consensus has shifted
to a more ‘democratic’
view of creativity, where
creativity is for everyone
and, as it does not require
genius, is thus teachable.
Large scale surveys (e.g.
the European Commission
in 2009) also reveal that most
teachers believe that creativity is a
fundamental skill that schools can and
should develop in their pupils.
If creativity is both definable and teachable,
as well as a necessary skill to equip young
people for the global challenges facing them,
then our 12 principles, designed to be applicable
across a variety of educational contexts, fosters
the creative capacities of learners, teachers,
leaders and school sytems and enables them to
turn their ideas into reality – giving them the
Power to Create.
This report is only the beginning. Why
not join us, as we discover a new approach to
learning and development; one that empowers
everyone, regardless of background or age, to
generate original, valuable ideas and to make
them happen.
Download the RSA report, Giving Schools the
Power to Create, at ow.ly/ZEGdn
resourceful through the RSA Teaching School
Alliance Continuing Professional Development
opportunities and encouraged to develop
action-research projects. A family of schools
working together also enables system-based
innovation through the development of an
all-through curriculum approach, where
pupils of all ages are challenged and inspired to
be creative.
That said, our 12 Design Principles must
reach beyond educational institutions – there
has to be a shift in public demand for the
encouragement of creativity if we are to close
the creativity gap. Various countries around the
world, from Singapore to Canada, have invested
in raising the status of creativity. Yet we feel
that there has been a lack of sustained effort
and a lack of rigour in the surrounding debate.
It does not help that creativity in education is
a heavily contested space and, in conducting
our own research, we have found it to be often
poorly defined, poorly understood, and poorly
practised. Despite decades of research and
discussions over the definition of ‘creativity’
and how it should impact learning, there has
been no move towards a consensus on what
creativity is or even whether it can be taught,
learned or assessed.
This matters as robust, common assessment
mechanisms would raise creativity’s status
amongst policymakers, as well as supporting
teachers and pupils to develop their own
creative capacities. In our report, we define
it as “the type of imaginative thinking that
produces an outcome possessing some level of
originality as well as some sense of value”. We
also refer to the comprehensive breakdown of
creative capacities, developed with teachers by
Bill Lucas and colleagues at the University of
Winchester as a starting point:
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