How can teachers promote creativity?

Build creativity objectives into your planning (you could integrate these with subject-specific objectives).

Look for opportunities to promote creativity in your existing schemes of work and lesson plans. Could you adapt any activities so that they offer more potential for creativity?

Devise activities that are personally and culturally authentic. Try to build on pupils’ interests and experiences (both in and out of school).

Plan for a range of teaching and learning styles so that as many pupils as possible have the opportunity to show their creativity. Role play can increase pupils’ imaginative engagement and give them freedom to explore ideas. Hands-on experimentation, problem solving, discussion and collaborative work all provide excellent opportunities for creative thinking and behaviour.

Never lose sight of the importance of knowledge and skills. Pupils are only able to engage creatively and purposefully with the challenges they encounter if they have a solid base of knowledge and skills.

Give pupils a clear goal that is challenging yet achievable.

Share objectives with the pupils and give them opportunities to choose ways of working and how to shape the direction of work.

Stimulating starting points – such as sights, sounds, smells, visits and contact with creative people – capture pupils’ interest and fire their imagination.

Give pupils a set of constraints (for example limit time and/or resources). This makes an activity more approachable and can encourage pupils to improvise and experiment.

Actively encourage pupils to question, make connections, envisage what might be and explore ideas. Promote and reward imagination and originality.

Ask open-ended questions such as ‘What if…?’ and ‘How might you…?’ to help pupils see things from different perspectives.

Value and praise what pupils do and say. Establish an atmosphere in which they feel safe to say things, take risks and respond creatively.

Create a fun, relaxed working environment if you want to encourage pupils to be adventurous and explore ideas freely.

Create conditions for quiet reflection and concentration if you want to encourage pupils to work imaginatively.

Make the most of unexpected events. When appropriate, put aside your lesson plan and ‘go with the moment’, but never lose sight of your overall learning objectives.

Be willing to stand back and let pupils take the lead. However, make sure that you are always on hand to provide prompts and support as needed.

Join in with activities and model creative thinking and behaviour. Showing the pupils that you are a learner too can help to create an open, constructive learning environment.

Give pupils opportunities to work with others from their class, year group and different age groups.

Help pupils to develop criteria that they can use to judge their own work, in particular its originality and value (this can be as simple as asking, ‘What makes a good…?’).

Stop regularly for open discussion of the problems pupils are facing and how they can solve them. Encourage pupils to share ideas with others and to talk about their progress.

Help pupils to appreciate the different qualities in others’ work and to value ways of working that are different from their own.

Help pupils to give and receive constructive feedback.