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Creative Thinking in the Early Years ofEducationANNA CRAFT aa The Open Creativity Centre , The Open University , MiltonKeynes, UKPublished online: 01 Jul 2010.

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Early Years, Vol. 23, No. 2, September 2003

Creative Thinking in the Early Years ofEducation

ANNA CRAFT, The Open Creativity Centre, The Open University,Milton Keynes, UK

ABSTRACT This paper proposes a framework for exploring creative thinking in the earlyyears of school. It explores creative thinking as characterised in two significantcurriculum landmarks applicable to young children: Plowden from the 1960s and theEarly Learning Goals from 2000. It proposes ‘little c creativity’ as a way of conceptu-alising creativity, arguing that it represents the start of a ‘third wave’ of understandingthe meaning and potential of creativity in the early years of education. Drawing onempirical observations from a number of nursery and early years classrooms inEngland, it raises some pedagogical and systemic issues around fostering ‘little ccreativity’ in the early years of education.

Keywords: creativity, little c creativity, third wave

Opportunities for Creative Interventions? Curriculum policy context

The following is a snapshot from a nursery classroom that I was working in recently asa researcher.

Craig and the LegoJust before lunch, Craig (aged four) arrives at the carpeted area of the nurseryclassroom clutching a small lego construction which he has been makingpainstakingly for the past 20 minutes in another part of the room. His teacher,frustrated at his late arrival and at his disregard for the rules that constructionsare taken apart at the end of each session, scolds him, to which he responds“I made that”…

What happens next for him? What will support his creativity? Why? What will be theimplications for his teacher? And—you might ask, too—how is this creativity?

There is a large variety of research on creativity. Its range is extremely broad, and asRhyammar and Brolin (1999) point out, there has been ‘an even broader range of

ISSN 0957-5146 print/ISSN 1472-4421 online/03/020143-12 2003 TACTYC

DOI: 10.1080/0957514032000

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speculation’ about the nature of creativity; distinctions can be drawn between thecreativity of the genius and that of the ordinary person (Craft, 2002) but equally thereis frequently conceptual slippage between the notions of creativity, imagination, enter-prise, innovation and adaptability. The definitions which have had most influence ineducation in the last 50 years have been those which marry creativity and imagination[Elliott (1971) called this the ‘new creativity’], and which take an inclusive approach,recognising that being creative is a fundamental aspect of human nature and that allchildren are capable of manifesting and developing their creativity. A widely accepteddefinition of creativity is that proposed by the National Advisory Committee for Creativeand Cultural Education (NACCCE, 1999), which was ‘imaginative activity fashioned soas to produce outcomes that are both original and of value’ (p. 29). This is discussedlater in the paper.

There are perhaps infinite opportunities for creative interventions in early educationpractice. Curriculum policy for the primary and early years over the last 50 years hascodified some of these and they can be seen as having occurred in three ‘waves’.

The First Two Waves of Conceptualising Creativity in the Early Years of Education

Perhaps the earliest policy statement on creativity was in the 1933 Hadow Report(GBBECC, 1933) which recommended appropriate practical and cognitive provision forchildren from the nursery through to 7 � , within the context of a child-focused rationaleof the education of young children. It named imaginative activity and thinking asimportant (though tied it closely to reality rather than the realms of fancy), and alsonoted the significance of offering children contexts for self-expression.

The Hadow Report provided an important precursor to the Plowden Report (CACE,1967), and together they can be seen as representing the first ‘wave’ of policyrecommendations and activity in practice in fostering creativity with early yearschildren. This first wave linked creativity to a particular, child-centred, discovery-basedpedagogical approach and also to the arts. It not only had a major general influence onthe broad curriculum for this age range, it also crystallised thinking about creativity ineducation for the generation which followed it. As well as drawing on the HadowReport, it also drew on a large body of so-called liberal thinking on the education ofchildren.

Plowden represented a distinct position on what had preceded it. It formed an earlyattempt to suggest how to stimulate creativity. Plowden made a significant contributionto the way in which creativity in early school education was understood. The reportsuggested that a child’s creativity was:

• benign;• that it lay at the heart of all teaching and learning arrangements; and• was primarily associated with play.

It can also be seen as having provided an early foundation for the move in creativityresearch towards an emphasis on social systems rather than personality or cognition orpsychodynamics.

Plowden provided a landmark in envisioning a role for creativity in the curriculum.Creativity became associated with a range of other approaches which included discoverylearning, child-centred pedagogy, an integrated curriculum, the embracing of self-refer-encing and the apparent move away from an emphasis on social norms for evaluativepurposes. But because of the conceptual and practical problems with the progressive

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movement, it was later argued that the fostering of creativity was perceived as a ratherloose notion (Cox & Dyson, 1971; NACCCE, 1999), and was thus pushed to the backof policy makers’ priorities in curriculum development.

Later in the 20th century, as the foundations of what was to become the NationalCurriculum were laid, the Plowden concept of creativity was left behind. No policy wasput in its place initially, for the focus was on the formulation in 1989 of a NationalCurriculum with a high propositional knowledge content. Later, after the first revision ofthe National Curriculum in 1995, the attention of curriculum policy makers turnedincreasingly to thinking and other life skills involved in children’s learning—as well ashow to ‘join up’ early learning with the National Curriculum. And here we come to thesecond wave, which included some attention to the fostering of creativity, alongside aresurgence of interest in psychology and education research. The revival of researchinterest can be seen, Jeffrey and Craft (2001) argue, as drawing in the role of socialinteraction in an unprecedented way, where the individual’s creativity was understood asbeing influenced by that of others. For example, some significant theories have been putforward in which creativity is seen from a systems perspective (Cziksentmihalyi, 1998;Sternberg, 1988; Sternberg & Lubart, 1991a,b, 1995), where various elements of theoverall social and cognitive context are seen as highly relevant to the activity of creating.Three major studies were undertaken in the field of creativity—one in Europe (Ekvall,1991, 1996) and two in the USA (Amabile, 1988; Isaksen, 1995)—which explored theorganisational climates which serve to stimulate creativity. The outcomes of these threeprogrammes have converged at several major points, resulting in a range of strategiesseen as important for stimulating creativity in organisations. In addition, Amabile’s(1988) model suggests that individual creativity may be affected by even very minoraspects of the immediate social environment. In education, the shift to the social becameapparent also. For example, in the United Kingdom, Woods (1995) and Woods andJeffrey (1996) focused on exploring teacher creativity, documenting ways in which smallnumbers of teachers operate creatively and foster pupil creativity, in the face of a widercontext which arguably suppresses the creativity of the teaching profession (Woods &Jeffrey, 1996; Jeffrey & Woods, 2003).

In curriculum policy, there were at least three major initiatives. First, there was theinclusion of ‘Creative Development’ as one of the six areas of learning for early yearschildren (QCA/DfEE, 2000)—which some commentators suggested were a direct conse-quence of the introduction of the National Curriculum for children aged five and above.Second, there was the commissioning of the National Advisory Committee on Creativeand Cultural Education (NACCCE), mentioned earlier, which reported in 1999. TheCommittee gave advice on what would need to be done at a range of levels includingpolicy making, to foster the development of pupil creativity within school education.Third, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) and Department for Edu-cation and Employment (DfEE) identified ‘creative thinking’ as a key skill in theNational Curriculum (QCA/DfEE, 1999).

Let us look at each of them in turn.

Creative Development

The codifying of this part of the early years curriculum for children up to the age of five,meshed closely with the existing norms and discourse about early education. ‘CreativeDevelopment’ encompasses art, craft and design and various forms of dramatic play andcreative expression, all of which have traditionally formed a core part of early years

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provision. It emphasises the role of imagination and the importance of childrendeveloping a range of ways of expressing their ideas and communicating their feelings.

Although many welcomed the codifying of creativity in some form within the earlylearning curriculum, nevertheless several problems may be detected with the concept of‘Creative Development’.

First, its formulation implies that creativity involves specific parts of the curriculumand certain forms of learning only. Yet, it could be argued that problem finding andsolving, using imagination and posing ‘what if?’ questions could (and do) occur withina whole range of domains.

Second, conceiving of creativity as something which may be ‘developed’ also opensit to the standard criticisms of developmentalism, for there is an implication that thereis a ceiling, or a static end-state. There is an implication that, given the appropriateimmediate learning environment, children will ‘develop’. The presupposition of a ceilingcan be seen as being problematic, as it assumes that we know what the superlative is inany domain of endeavour, which is clearly not the case as a matter of empirical fact.Excellence evolves. The notion of ‘natural’ development can be seen as problematic, ifthe role of interaction with the social and physical world is not acknowledged and, asfar as is possible, explored.

Thirdly, the implication is that play and creativity are the same. It could be argued thatthey are not. Play may be, but is not necessarily, creative. For example, ‘Snakes andLadders’, being dependent upon a mix of chance and a set structure, is not creative, but‘Hide and Seek’ may well be, demanding the consideration of options and possibilitiesfor hiding places and seeking strategies. For this very reason, of course, games of chancemay, on some definitions, not be considered to be play at all—yet in everyday parlance,the term play often encompasses such games.

The NACCCE Report (1999)

The NACCCE Report linked the fostering of pupil creativity with the development ofculture, in that original ideas and action are developed in a shifting cultural context. Itsuggested that the fostering of pupil creativity would contribute to the cultural develop-ment of society and that creativity rarely occurs without some form of interrogation ofwhat has gone before or is occurring synchronously. Examples given included the artsas well as sciences, although many of its recommendations involved the raising of theprofile of the arts in schools.

The report distinguished between different definitions of creativity, proposing the‘democratic’ definition as the one perhaps most appropriate to education, suggesting ‘allpeople are capable of creative achievement in some area of activity, provided theconditions are right and they have acquired the relevant knowledge and skills’ (NAC-CCE, 1999, Paragraph 25).

This notion of ‘democratic creativity’ has some connection with Plowden, in that:

• pupils’ self-expression is valued; and• all people are seen as capable of creativity.

But the NACCCE ‘democratic creativity’ definition contrasts with the Plowden approachin a number of ways too. First, it argues for the acquisition of knowledge and skills asthe necessary foundation to creativity—reflecting the wider research context in the‘situating’ of knowledge. Secondly, it has a great deal more to say on creativity thanPlowden since that was its main focus.

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Criticisms of the NACCCE Report are few, the major one being that it gives animplicit message that creativity is arts-based; however, curiously, others have argued thatthe report gave insufficient attention to the development of the arts, as its emphasis wasinterdisciplinary. Given the strong messages in the report about creativity being relevantin any domain, it is difficult to see what justification there could be for suggesting it wasover-focused on the arts.

The National Curriculum

By contrast, the National Curriculum Handbook for Primary Teachers in England,proposes a cross-curricular role for creativity in the aims of the school curriculum,saying that ‘the curriculum should enable pupils to think creatively … It should givethem the opportunity to become creative …’ (QCA/DfEE, 1999, p. 11). Creativity isdefined in the National Curriculum Handbook as a cross-curricular thinking skill. Thisreflects the notion proposed by some that creativity is not the preserve of the arts alonebut that it arises in all domains of human endeavour.

Yet, identifying creativity as a skill could be seen as an over-simplification, for tooperate creatively must necessarily presuppose an understanding of the domain and thuscreativity cannot be seen as a knowledge-free, transferable skill. On the other hand, theNational Curriculum, even in its revised form, is very knowledge-heavy, and thus thecurriculum framework itself could be claimed to provide the knowledge base withinwhich creativity is to operate. It is left to teachers, however, to make the connection.

These three major policy developments in the second wave reflect a wider burgeoningof interest in creativity beyond education at the start of the 21st century. This can be seenas reflecting social, technological and economic imperatives (Craft, 1997, 1998, 2000).Although these policies have occurred almost simultaneously, however, a notable featureof them is their lack of coherence as a set of measures, in a number of ways, and thisleads to problems of curriculum continuity for early years practitioners (Craft, 1999):

• focus and detail [there is a variety of foci, including detailed discussion of creativityin the Foundation Stage curriculum guidance (QCA/DfEE, 2000) for different agestages, in ‘Creative Development’, compared with a broad-brush description ofcreativity as a cross-curricular thinking skill but not mapped in at all, in the EnglishNational Curriculum. This compares with a focus on creativity across learning, linkedin with culture, in the NACCCE Report (1999)];

• the way that creativity is defined. [ranging from arts, play, aesthetic development andself-expression emphases in the Early Learning Goals, to broader, skill-based ones inthe National Curriculum, as well as the NACCCE Report];

• the extent to which the guidance is statutory. [the National Curriculum and the EarlyLearning Goals being statutory and the NACCCE Report not being].

This very incoherence suggests that the placing of creativity more centrally in theschool curriculum has not yet occurred, despite a growing recognition of the need toensure creativity is fostered in learners and teachers. Indeed, some commentators havestated that the general direction being taken during the process of developing curriculafor young children is that it has moved young children’s learning firmly in the directionof formalised, ‘basic’ skills and knowledge, and away from a ‘child-focused’ curriculum(Drummond, 1999; Schmidt, 1998; Pascal & Bertram, 1999).

It seems to me that we may now be experiencing the start of a third wave.

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The Third Wave? Little c creativity

Uncertainty is a given in industrialised societies in today’s world. Patterns of life whichmay have been more predictable in earlier times are now much less so. The very speedof change has itself introduced the need to exercise choice in a wide range of settingsand at a spectrum of levels from the individual through to the collective. The growingculture of individualism, together with changes in technology and the marketplace, maybe seen as demanding, and offering, an ever-growing role to the individual’s own‘agency’ in determining directions, routes and pathways through all sorts of aspects oflife. Surviving and thriving in the 21st century seems to require a sort of ‘personaleffectiveness’ in coping well with unknown territory and in recognising and makingchoices.

I would like to call this creativity in everyday life, or ‘little c creativity’ (to distinguishit from creativity in the arts, and/or the paradigm-shifting creativity of great figures inhistory). What then does little c creativity, involve? It is the capacity to route-find, acrossthe breadth of life’s contexts—i.e. ‘life-wide’. I use the term ‘little c creativity’ toencompass personal effectiveness, a life-wide resourcefulness which is effective insuccessfully enabling the individual to chart a course of action by seeing opportunitiesas well as overcoming obstacles. Implied in ‘little c creativity’ is the notion that it isessentially a practical matter akin to Ryle’s (1949) ‘know-how’ in that it is concernedwith the skills involved in manoeuvring and operating with concepts, ideas and thephysical and social world.

The kind of creativity being proposed here is in keeping with the liberal tradition andliberal ideas in general, in paying attention to the well-being of the individual. It focuseson the individual making something of his or her life, whilst being tied in to the widersocial, economic and ethical framework of society. It has something in common with theRomantic movement in the sense that it celebrates individuality and the potential forgoing beyond existing traditions.

Although it is a concept which emphasises the individual’s freedom, little c creativitymay also be developed in a context of constraint. A playgroup for example may at timesprovide opportunities for children to explore the play activities entirely independently,with a large degree of freedom. In such circumstances, a child may exercise little ccreativity in the making of choices and in making something of friendships, and inexploring specific activities such as role-play or construction with bricks. By contrast, atother times, the playgroup may constrain the children’s choices so that they must choosebetween specified activities, for example, cutting and sticking, quiet time in the bookcorner, painting or a number activity. The constraining of choices does not necessarilymean that creativity may not be developed.

Little c creativity is not necessarily tied to a product-outcome, for it involvesexercising imaginativeness. But it involves having some grasp of the domain ofapplication, and thus of the appropriateness of the ideas. It involves the use ofimagination, intelligence and self-expression.

Little c creativity goes beyond the provision in both the Early Learning Goals and theNational Curriculum 2000. Although it can be argued (Craft, 2000; Rowe & Humphries,2001), that creativity can be encouraged in children aged 3–8 through these existingcurricula, I want to suggest that this occurs in spite of, not because of, the statutorycurriculum framework. Fostering young children’s resourcefulness and encouragingthem to consider and implement alternative possibilities in a range of contexts, includingplay, relationships, collective activity such as circle time and ‘formal’ curriculum areassuch as early mathematics, requires the embracing of little c creativity.

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It has something in common with the ‘democratic’ version of creativity proposed bythe NACCCE Report (1999), which was: ‘Imaginative activity fashioned so as toproduce outcomes that are both original and of value’ (p. 29). But what is distinct aboutlittle c creativity is its emphasis on resourcefulness life-wide.

There is a case for early education enabling children to develop confidence and skillsin shaping themselves and their lives, both now as children and later as adults. Seen inthis way, the existing Early Learning Goals and National Curriculum are insufficient ontheir own, for fostering little c creativity involves harnessing children’s inherentflexibility and resourcefulness.

To illustrate the kinds of activity that I would classify as little c creativity in earlyeducation, here are four short case studies, from early years settings in the UK.

Case Study 1: Rowan and the computer gameFour year-old Rowan is playing on the computer, whilst his teacher works onthe play mat nearby, helping some other boys do some drawing for theirpersonal record books. Rowan completes the game which was on the screen,which is a teddy bear with ‘clothes’ which need to be placed over the correctpart of his body. He looks around at his teacher, and then seeing him occupied,deftly finds the menu screen to select a new game. He seems to be concentrat-ing hard on his task. After a few seconds he succeeds in bringing up a newgame, this time involving sorting. His teacher notices what he is doing at thispoint and comes over. “Did you manage it all by yourself, Rowan?” he asks,appreciatively. Rowan nods and smiles. But this is a game he is unfamiliarwith and he then seems puzzled about what to do next. His teacher asks, “whatdo you think you might need to do for this game?” Rowan is unsure, andmeanwhile another child from the carpeted area notices and calls out asuggestion. His teacher warmly acknowledges the suggestion, whilst at thesame time encouraging Rowan to consider what the game might require.Rowan eventually decides on his own rules for the game which involve puttingall of the pieces into the ‘rubbish bin’. Although this is not ‘officially’ the waythe game works, Rowan in fact sorts each of the fruits verbally, as he putsthem into the bin (i.e. he does each fruit-type in groups). Rather than criticisingthis, his teacher praises his idea and his grouping and encourages him tocontinue to think about how this game works.

Case Study 2: possibilities and thinking thumbsA small group of 6-year-olds are working with a disparate selection ofmaterials that their teacher has introduced to them. The materials includebread, glue, tissue paper, scissors water and card. During the discussion beforethey start on their own individual projects, their teacher encourages them toexplore the properties of each resource, showing that they are thinking bywaggling their ‘thinking thumbs’. She talks gently but purposively with thechildren, trying to maintain a relationship with each as an individual. As thechildren come up with ideas of how the materials could be used, she useslanguage carefully to hint that each person will make up their own mind abouthow to use these materials. “You might be going to do that” she mentionsseveral times in response to ideas.

Case Study 3: Manouella and the hoopsManouella is leading a music and dance session, with a group of children aged

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three and four, in a nursery school. She uses hoops during the session, for anumber of different imaginary things, including puddles, trays of cakes andhandbags. Using music and song as the backdrop, the children jump into the‘puddles’, hold the ‘trays’ and carry the ‘bags’. They do all these things aschildren, as an old person, and so on, again listening to the mood of the musicto help them determine how to move. Later in the morning, Manouella noticessome of the same children are playing with their hoop play objects in exactlythe same way, in the outdoor play area. Going over to them and bending down,she engages with their play, acknowledging their choice of imaginary objectand again using her voice to encourage them to experiment further withdirection (high pitch signifying ‘up’ and low pitch signifying ‘down’, etc),tempo and so on.

Case Study 4Two 3-year-olds are playing in the nursery sand pit with a long wooden plank,when it begins to rain. As their teachers start to pack away the toys whichbelong in the shed, one child runs indoors whilst the other has the idea ofstarting to drag the plank toward the shed. After a few unsuccessful heaves atit, he commissions the observing researcher a few feet away, to take one endof it, demonstrating belief that his idea can be manifest, and showingimagination in overcoming the difficulty he had had doing it alone.

In each case, children manifest ‘possibility thinking’ and the adults around themencourage and support it.

This particular call for ‘ordinary’ creativity is quite distinct from the first and secondwaves, although it does draw on some similar ideas, as acknowledged throughout thispaper. Its distinguishing features, however, are five-fold. Little c creativity:

1. extends beyond the curriculum subjects, to the width of ordinary life—it is, in thissense, ‘life-wide’;

2. conceptualises creativity as relevant across the curriculum;3. is related to the wider economic, social and technological context (Craft, 2000) [here

it contrasts with the 1960s approach to creativity, but is closer to the NACCCE andthe 2000 National Curriculum formulations of it];

4. is not necessarily tied to a particular pedagogy;5. is not value-free and is set in the context of humane morality.

Challenges Posed by little c creativity in the Classroom

There are a number of pedagogical and other challenges posed by little c creativity inthe early years classroom. First, four pedagogical ones.

Distinguishing between Creativity and Children’s Play

To what extent is creativity separate from play? As discussed, briefly, earlier, althoughplay is necessary to creativity, not all play is creative. Hopscotch, like Snakes andLadders, may be described as not creative, but Musical Statues, like Hide and Seek may

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well be, demanding the consideration of options and possibilities for how to move,predicting what positions may have to be held when the music stops, just as Hide andSeek requires considering different hiding places. Pedagogical strategies inevitably havea role to play in the extent to which children’s free play is creative. The home cornerof the classroom, and the outdoor area of the playground, can be resourced and staffedin such a way as to encourage greater creativity.

Balancing Individual and Group Needs

Encouraging the individual to path-find their way through aspects of life may at timesbe in tension with the need for teachers and other early years practitioners to ensure thatthe needs of the whole group are attended to. This is true in any curriculum area, butis particularly obvious where the emphasis on the individual’s own ‘take’ on theircurrent and potential learning is what is highlighted.

The Role of Knowledge

Knowledge, it has been argued, is a necessary precondition to creativity (Boden,2001)—and the challenge for educators is to get the balance right, so that the creativitycan be based on understanding, and the knowledge can be developed without, as Bodensays (2001), ‘killing the creativity’ (p. 102). The curriculum framework is clearlyrelevant here. The heavier and more compulsory the curriculum framework and theknowledge base, the greater the challenge perhaps, to educators, to develop creativitybased on this, for if nothing else time becomes a premium in a crowded and/orcompulsory curriculum. But the counter-balance to this is ensuring that educators havesufficient access to the knowledge base themselves, to ensure that children work withdeep and accurate understanding of the domain, as the starting point for their creativity.

The Role of the Teacher

We are perhaps on the brink of the evolution of the teacher’s role into something whichis quite different. A number of aspects of current provision in education could be seenas laying the ground for major change. These include the following.

1. The potential for learning offered by information and communication technology(ICT). New technology is a tool for creativity as well as having the potential todetermine both the output of creativity and a definition of it. But it is undeniably anexpanding environment for expressing and fostering creativity. And it has thepotential to stimulate collaborative creativity too (Leach, 2001).

2. The extent to which we understand creativity to be individual or collective. It isincreasingly argued that creativity actually belongs in ‘communities’, residing in the‘spaces’ between individual minds, rather than being sited entirely in the individual.The implications of this stance are that creativity is rooted in a democratic practiceof sharing and developing learning and that it is less a result of genius and more ofshared ideas.

3. Lifelong learning. There is an increasing recognition at policy level, of the need toshift the function and purpose of the school towards being a hub in the learningcommunity where adults and children can learn alongside one another, lifelong, andlife-wide, over a longer learning day and in different configurations than are currently

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in place. Such schemes involve mentor relationships and connecting adult expertise,both within and without the school, with children’s learning.

Each of these three examples: ICT, creativity as collective, and lifelong learning, ishelping to shift the early years practitioner’s role toward becoming a broker betweenknowledge and people, and toward encouraging collaborative learning, as well asoperating inter-generationally and in both virtual and actual learning contexts. Theinfrastructure of the buildings used for learning in, the terms and conditions of teachers’jobs and the institutions which could employ them in the future, are, of course, some ofthe changes which would be triggered by some of the ideas I have just outlined.

Then, there are systemic, or cultural, challenges. Fostering children’s little c creativitycan be viewed as a way of encouraging a future-orientation in the children, life-wide, inorder to lay the foundation for children to become flexible experts rather than rule-boundspecialists, to adopt Abbott’s (1999) distinction. Doing this through the systematic andintegrated provision of what is often called educare, would be desirable. But this wouldinvolve vision at the systemic level, rather than reform.

As Moylett and Abbott (1999) observe, many of the changes in early childhoodeducation have been reforms. As they put it, ‘old plasticine in new shapes’ (p. 5); or asPeacocke (1999) has written in the same volume, dispensing old wine in new bottlesrather than vision-making. Vision, by contrast, aims to break ‘out of the box’; it does notnecessarily accept the status quo, it attempts to take risks, and it encompasses reflectionand divergent thinking. It involves treating children as agents with an active role inmaking their future happen. This is not to say that they are ‘hot-housed’, but ratherencouraged to exercise little c creativity, in the here-and-now.

These ideas can be seen as representing a logical and natural progression from therecommendations of the Rumbold Report (DES, 1990) on 3- and 4-year-olds, whichadvocated greater coherence and flexibility in education and care, at any rate for theunder-5s. There is a need for a co-ordinated attempt to provide continuity bothhorizontally and vertically across the years of childhood from two and a half to 8, in away which holds at its heart, in its aims and in its enactment, children’s creativity. Theformal and informal curriculum for children aged 5 and over needs review at the levelsof both policy and practice, but particularly at the policy level, to ensure that opportuni-ties exist to nurture children’s little c creativity. One example of a policy step whichcould be taken is the reduction of curriculum content, to enable a little more time for theexercise of creative teaching and of teaching for creativity.

Summing Up

To sum up, then, this paper has made a case for the significance of little c creativity inthe curriculum of young children, setting this in the context of two former waves ofactivity in creativity suggesting that the curriculum developments of the second wave areinsufficient on their own. It has proposed that the third wave, requiring little c creativity,is upon us, but that it carries with it some pedagogical and other challenges anddilemmas.

Finally—to return to Craig and his lego: what would have made his experiencecreative? Any or all of these strategies might have been positive responses to him:

• hearing and acknowledging him: giving him time in a busy moment;• engaging with the knowledge that enabled him to construct the model;

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• enabling him to have the space to keep it—but with reference to the wider needs ofthe class;

• celebrating the possibility thinking he brought to a rule-bound situation.

Of course we are then faced with the question ‘what would have been the conse-quences?’ There were the overall needs of the class, and of the school—lunch waswaiting. And to have approached that moment in an embracing way might have been toinvite other events like this—with the potential to disrupt plans. But I would suggest thatto ignore opportunities such as this, that children offer us, is to shut down possibility.This, in tomorrow’s world, is something we cannot afford to do.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the children and practitioners in several UK settings who have providedopportunities for me to collect case studies to illustrate the arguments in this paper. Allnames have been changed to protect anonymity. I am also grateful to academic andpractitioner colleagues whose feedback on earlier drafts of this paper has been invaluablein refining it.

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