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Creative Thinking in the Early Years of

Education
a
ANNA CRAFT
a
The Open Creativity Centre , The Open University , Milton
Keynes, UK
Published online: 01 Jul 2010.

To cite this article: ANNA CRAFT (2003) Creative Thinking in the Early Years of Education, Early
Years: An International Research Journal, 23:2, 143-154, DOI: 10.1080/09575140303105

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

Creative Thinking in the Early Years of

Education

ANNA CRAFT, The Open Creativity Centre, The Open University,

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Milton Keynes, UK

ABSTRACT This paper proposes a framework for exploring creative thinking in the early
years of school. It explores creative thinking as characterised in two significant
curriculum landmarks applicable to young children: Plowden from the 1960s and the
Early 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 understanding
the meaning and potential of creativity in the early years of education. Drawing on
empirical observations from a number of nursery and early years classrooms in
England, it raises some pedagogical and systemic issues around fostering ‘little c
creativity’ 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 as
a researcher.
Craig and the Lego
Just before lunch, Craig (aged four) arrives at the carpeted area of the nursery
classroom clutching a small lego construction which he has been making
painstakingly 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 constructions
are 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 the
implications 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 as
Rhyammar 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
 144 A. Craft

speculation’ about the nature of creativity; distinctions can be drawn between the
creativity of the genius and that of the ordinary person (Craft, 2002) but equally there
is frequently conceptual slippage between the notions of creativity, imagination, enter-
prise, innovation and adaptability. The definitions which have had most influence in
education 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 all
children are capable of manifesting and developing their creativity. A widely accepted
definition of creativity is that proposed by the National Advisory Committee for Creative
and Cultural Education (NACCCE, 1999), which was ‘imaginative activity fashioned so
as to produce outcomes that are both original and of value’ (p. 29). This is discussed
later in the paper.
There are perhaps infinite opportunities for creative interventions in early education
practice. Curriculum policy for the primary and early years over the last 50 years has
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codified 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 for
children from the nursery through to 7 ⫹ , within the context of a child-focused rationale
of the education of young children. It named imaginative activity and thinking as
important (though tied it closely to reality rather than the realms of fancy), and also
noted 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 policy
recommendations and activity in practice in fostering creativity with early years
children. This first wave linked creativity to a particular, child-centred, discovery-based
pedagogical approach and also to the arts. It not only had a major general influence on
the broad curriculum for this age range, it also crystallised thinking about creativity in
education for the generation which followed it. As well as drawing on the Hadow
Report, it also drew on a large body of so-called liberal thinking on the education of
children.
Plowden represented a distinct position on what had preceded it. It formed an early
attempt to suggest how to stimulate creativity. Plowden made a significant contribution
to the way in which creativity in early school education was understood. The report
suggested 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 creativity
research towards an emphasis on social systems rather than personality or cognition or
psychodynamics.
Plowden provided a landmark in envisioning a role for creativity in the curriculum.
Creativity became associated with a range of other approaches which included discovery
learning, child-centred pedagogy, an integrated curriculum, the embracing of self-refer-
encing and the apparent move away from an emphasis on social norms for evaluative
purposes. But because of the conceptual and practical problems with the progressive
 Creative Thinking in the Early Years of Education 145

movement, it was later argued that the fostering of creativity was perceived as a rather
loose notion (Cox & Dyson, 1971; NACCCE, 1999), and was thus pushed to the back
of policy makers’ priorities in curriculum development.
Later in the 20th century, as the foundations of what was to become the National
Curriculum were laid, the Plowden concept of creativity was left behind. No policy was
put in its place initially, for the focus was on the formulation in 1989 of a National
Curriculum with a high propositional knowledge content. Later, after the first revision of
the National Curriculum in 1995, the attention of curriculum policy makers turned
increasingly to thinking and other life skills involved in children’s learning—as well as
how to ‘join up’ early learning with the National Curriculum. And here we come to the
second wave, which included some attention to the fostering of creativity, alongside a
resurgence of interest in psychology and education research. The revival of research
interest can be seen, Jeffrey and Craft (2001) argue, as drawing in the role of social
interaction in an unprecedented way, where the individual’s creativity was understood as
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being influenced by that of others. For example, some significant theories have been put
forward in which creativity is seen from a systems perspective (Cziksentmihalyi, 1998;
Sternberg, 1988; Sternberg & Lubart, 1991a,b, 1995), where various elements of the
overall 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 the
organisational climates which serve to stimulate creativity. The outcomes of these three
programmes have converged at several major points, resulting in a range of strategies
seen as important for stimulating creativity in organisations. In addition, Amabile’s
(1988) model suggests that individual creativity may be affected by even very minor
aspects of the immediate social environment. In education, the shift to the social became
apparent also. For example, in the United Kingdom, Woods (1995) and Woods and
Jeffrey (1996) focused on exploring teacher creativity, documenting ways in which small
numbers of teachers operate creatively and foster pupil creativity, in the face of a wider
context 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 the
inclusion of ‘Creative Development’ as one of the six areas of learning for early years
children (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 Creative
and Cultural Education (NACCCE), mentioned earlier, which reported in 1999. The
Committee gave advice on what would need to be done at a range of levels including
policy 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 the
National 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. ‘Creative
Development’ encompasses art, craft and design and various forms of dramatic play and
creative expression, all of which have traditionally formed a core part of early years
 146 A. Craft

provision. It emphasises the role of imagination and the importance of children

developing a range of ways of expressing their ideas and communicating their feelings.
Although many welcomed the codifying of creativity in some form within the early
learning curriculum, nevertheless several problems may be detected with the concept of
‘Creative Development’.
First, its formulation implies that creativity involves specific parts of the curriculum
and certain forms of learning only. Yet, it could be argued that problem finding and
solving, using imagination and posing ‘what if?’ questions could (and do) occur within
a whole range of domains.
Second, conceiving of creativity as something which may be ‘developed’ also opens
it to the standard criticisms of developmentalism, for there is an implication that there
is a ceiling, or a static end-state. There is an implication that, given the appropriate
immediate learning environment, children will ‘develop’. The presupposition of a ceiling
can be seen as being problematic, as it assumes that we know what the superlative is in
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any 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, if
the role of interaction with the social and physical world is not acknowledged and, as
far as is possible, explored.
Thirdly, the implication is that play and creativity are the same. It could be argued that
they are not. Play may be, but is not necessarily, creative. For example, ‘Snakes and
Ladders’, 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 possibilities
for hiding places and seeking strategies. For this very reason, of course, games of chance
may, 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 of
culture, in that original ideas and action are developed in a shifting cultural context. It
suggested 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 of
what has gone before or is occurring synchronously. Examples given included the arts
as well as sciences, although many of its recommendations involved the raising of the
profile 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 ‘all
people are capable of creative achievement in some area of activity, provided the
conditions 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 approach
in a number of ways too. First, it argues for the acquisition of knowledge and skills as
the 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 than
Plowden since that was its main focus.
 Creative Thinking in the Early Years of Education 147

Criticisms of the NACCCE Report are few, the major one being that it gives an
implicit message that creativity is arts-based; however, curiously, others have argued that
the report gave insufficient attention to the development of the arts, as its emphasis was
interdisciplinary. Given the strong messages in the report about creativity being relevant
in any domain, it is difficult to see what justification there could be for suggesting it was
over-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 give
them the opportunity to become creative …’ (QCA/DfEE, 1999, p. 11). Creativity is
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defined in the National Curriculum Handbook as a cross-curricular thinking skill. This

reflects the notion proposed by some that creativity is not the preserve of the arts alone
but that it arises in all domains of human endeavour.
Yet, identifying creativity as a skill could be seen as an over-simplification, for to
operate creatively must necessarily presuppose an understanding of the domain and thus
creativity cannot be seen as a knowledge-free, transferable skill. On the other hand, the
National Curriculum, even in its revised form, is very knowledge-heavy, and thus the
curriculum framework itself could be claimed to provide the knowledge base within
which 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 burgeoning
of interest in creativity beyond education at the start of the 21st century. This can be seen
as reflecting social, technological and economic imperatives (Craft, 1997, 1998, 2000).
Although these policies have occurred almost simultaneously, however, a notable feature
of them is their lack of coherence as a set of measures, in a number of ways, and this
leads to problems of curriculum continuity for early years practitioners (Craft, 1999):

• focus and detail [there is a variety of foci, including detailed discussion of creativity
in the Foundation Stage curriculum guidance (QCA/DfEE, 2000) for different age
stages, in ‘Creative Development’, compared with a broad-brush description of
creativity as a cross-curricular thinking skill but not mapped in at all, in the English
National Curriculum. This compares with a focus on creativity across learning, linked
in with culture, in the NACCCE Report (1999)];
• the way that creativity is defined. [ranging from arts, play, aesthetic development and
self-expression emphases in the Early Learning Goals, to broader, skill-based ones in
the National Curriculum, as well as the NACCCE Report];
• the extent to which the guidance is statutory. [the National Curriculum and the Early
Learning Goals being statutory and the NACCCE Report not being].

This very incoherence suggests that the placing of creativity more centrally in the
school curriculum has not yet occurred, despite a growing recognition of the need to
ensure creativity is fostered in learners and teachers. Indeed, some commentators have
stated that the general direction being taken during the process of developing curricula
for young children is that it has moved young children’s learning firmly in the direction
of 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.
 148 A. Craft

The Third Wave? Little c creativity

Uncertainty is a given in industrialised societies in today’s world. Patterns of life which
may have been more predictable in earlier times are now much less so. The very speed
of change has itself introduced the need to exercise choice in a wide range of settings
and at a spectrum of levels from the individual through to the collective. The growing
culture of individualism, together with changes in technology and the marketplace, may
be 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 of
life. Surviving and thriving in the 21st century seems to require a sort of ‘personal
effectiveness’ in coping well with unknown territory and in recognising and making
choices.
I would like to call this creativity in everyday life, or ‘little c creativity’ (to distinguish
it from creativity in the arts, and/or the paradigm-shifting creativity of great figures in
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history). What then does little c creativity, involve? It is the capacity to route-find, across
the breadth of life’s contexts—i.e. ‘life-wide’. I use the term ‘little c creativity’ to
encompass personal effectiveness, a life-wide resourcefulness which is effective in
successfully enabling the individual to chart a course of action by seeing opportunities
as well as overcoming obstacles. Implied in ‘little c creativity’ is the notion that it is
essentially a practical matter akin to Ryle’s (1949) ‘know-how’ in that it is concerned
with the skills involved in manoeuvring and operating with concepts, ideas and the
physical and social world.
The kind of creativity being proposed here is in keeping with the liberal tradition and
liberal ideas in general, in paying attention to the well-being of the individual. It focuses
on the individual making something of his or her life, whilst being tied in to the wider
social, economic and ethical framework of society. It has something in common with the
Romantic movement in the sense that it celebrates individuality and the potential for
going beyond existing traditions.
Although it is a concept which emphasises the individual’s freedom, little c creativity
may also be developed in a context of constraint. A playgroup for example may at times
provide opportunities for children to explore the play activities entirely independently,
with a large degree of freedom. In such circumstances, a child may exercise little c
creativity in the making of choices and in making something of friendships, and in
exploring specific activities such as role-play or construction with bricks. By contrast, at
other times, the playgroup may constrain the children’s choices so that they must choose
between specified activities, for example, cutting and sticking, quiet time in the book
corner, painting or a number activity. The constraining of choices does not necessarily
mean that creativity may not be developed.
Little c creativity is not necessarily tied to a product-outcome, for it involves
exercising imaginativeness. But it involves having some grasp of the domain of
application, and thus of the appropriateness of the ideas. It involves the use of
imagination, intelligence and self-expression.
Little c creativity goes beyond the provision in both the Early Learning Goals and the
National Curriculum 2000. Although it can be argued (Craft, 2000; Rowe & Humphries,
2001), that creativity can be encouraged in children aged 3–8 through these existing
curricula, I want to suggest that this occurs in spite of, not because of, the statutory
curriculum framework. Fostering young children’s resourcefulness and encouraging
them to consider and implement alternative possibilities in a range of contexts, including
play, relationships, collective activity such as circle time and ‘formal’ curriculum areas
such as early mathematics, requires the embracing of little c creativity.
 Creative Thinking in the Early Years of Education 149

It has something in common with the ‘democratic’ version of creativity proposed by

the NACCCE Report (1999), which was: ‘Imaginative activity fashioned so as to
produce outcomes that are both original and of value’ (p. 29). But what is distinct about
little c creativity is its emphasis on resourcefulness life-wide.
There is a case for early education enabling children to develop confidence and skills
in shaping themselves and their lives, both now as children and later as adults. Seen in
this way, the existing Early Learning Goals and National Curriculum are insufficient on
their own, for fostering little c creativity involves harnessing children’s inherent
flexibility and resourcefulness.
To illustrate the kinds of activity that I would classify as little c creativity in early
education, here are four short case studies, from early years settings in the UK.
Case Study 1: Rowan and the computer game
Four year-old Rowan is playing on the computer, whilst his teacher works on
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the play mat nearby, helping some other boys do some drawing for their
personal 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 correct
part 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 new
game, this time involving sorting. His teacher notices what he is doing at this
point 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 unfamiliar
with and he then seems puzzled about what to do next. His teacher asks, “what
do you think you might need to do for this game?” Rowan is unsure, and
meanwhile another child from the carpeted area notices and calls out a
suggestion. His teacher warmly acknowledges the suggestion, whilst at the
same time encouraging Rowan to consider what the game might require.
Rowan eventually decides on his own rules for the game which involve putting
all of the pieces into the ‘rubbish bin’. Although this is not ‘officially’ the way
the game works, Rowan in fact sorts each of the fruits verbally, as he puts
them into the bin (i.e. he does each fruit-type in groups). Rather than criticising
this, his teacher praises his idea and his grouping and encourages him to
continue to think about how this game works.

Case Study 2: possibilities and thinking thumbs

A small group of 6-year-olds are working with a disparate selection of
materials that their teacher has introduced to them. The materials include
bread, glue, tissue paper, scissors water and card. During the discussion before
they start on their own individual projects, their teacher encourages them to
explore the properties of each resource, showing that they are thinking by
waggling their ‘thinking thumbs’. She talks gently but purposively with the
children, trying to maintain a relationship with each as an individual. As the
children come up with ideas of how the materials could be used, she uses
language carefully to hint that each person will make up their own mind about
how to use these materials. “You might be going to do that” she mentions
several times in response to ideas.
Case Study 3: Manouella and the hoops
Manouella is leading a music and dance session, with a group of children aged
 150 A. Craft

three and four, in a nursery school. She uses hoops during the session, for a
number of different imaginary things, including puddles, trays of cakes and
handbags. 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 as
children, as an old person, and so on, again listening to the mood of the music
to help them determine how to move. Later in the morning, Manouella notices
some of the same children are playing with their hoop play objects in exactly
the same way, in the outdoor play area. Going over to them and bending down,
she engages with their play, acknowledging their choice of imaginary object
and again using her voice to encourage them to experiment further with
direction (high pitch signifying ‘up’ and low pitch signifying ‘down’, etc),
tempo and so on.
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Case Study 4
Two 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 which
belong in the shed, one child runs indoors whilst the other has the idea of
starting to drag the plank toward the shed. After a few unsuccessful heaves at
it, he commissions the observing researcher a few feet away, to take one end
of it, demonstrating belief that his idea can be manifest, and showing
imagination in overcoming the difficulty he had had doing it alone.

In each case, children manifest ‘possibility thinking’ and the adults around them
encourage and support it.
This particular call for ‘ordinary’ creativity is quite distinct from the first and second
waves, although it does draw on some similar ideas, as acknowledged throughout this
paper. 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 this
sense, ‘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 and
the 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 in
the 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, although
play is necessary to creativity, not all play is creative. Hopscotch, like Snakes and
Ladders, may be described as not creative, but Musical Statues, like Hide and Seek may
 Creative Thinking in the Early Years of Education 151

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 and
Seek requires considering different hiding places. Pedagogical strategies inevitably have
a role to play in the extent to which children’s free play is creative. The home corner
of the classroom, and the outdoor area of the playground, can be resourced and staffed
in 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 times
be in tension with the need for teachers and other early years practitioners to ensure that
the needs of the whole group are attended to. This is true in any curriculum area, but
is particularly obvious where the emphasis on the individual’s own ‘take’ on their
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current 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 creativity
can be based on understanding, and the knowledge can be developed without, as Boden
says (2001), ‘killing the creativity’ (p. 102). The curriculum framework is clearly
relevant here. The heavier and more compulsory the curriculum framework and the
knowledge base, the greater the challenge perhaps, to educators, to develop creativity
based on this, for if nothing else time becomes a premium in a crowded and/or
compulsory curriculum. But the counter-balance to this is ensuring that educators have
sufficient access to the knowledge base themselves, to ensure that children work with
deep 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 which
is quite different. A number of aspects of current provision in education could be seen
as 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 to
determine both the output of creativity and a definition of it. But it is undeniably an
expanding environment for expressing and fostering creativity. And it has the
potential to stimulate collaborative creativity too (Leach, 2001).
2. The extent to which we understand creativity to be individual or collective. It is
increasingly 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 practice
of sharing and developing learning and that it is less a result of genius and more of
shared ideas.
3. Lifelong learning. There is an increasing recognition at policy level, of the need to
shift the function and purpose of the school towards being a hub in the learning
community where adults and children can learn alongside one another, lifelong, and
life-wide, over a longer learning day and in different configurations than are currently
 152 A. Craft

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, is
helping to shift the early years practitioner’s role toward becoming a broker between
knowledge and people, and toward encouraging collaborative learning, as well as
operating inter-generationally and in both virtual and actual learning contexts. The
infrastructure 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 of
the 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 creativity
can be viewed as a way of encouraging a future-orientation in the children, life-wide, in
order to lay the foundation for children to become flexible experts rather than rule-bound
specialists, to adopt Abbott’s (1999) distinction. Doing this through the systematic and
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integrated provision of what is often called educare, would be desirable. But this would
involve vision at the systemic level, rather than reform.
As Moylett and Abbott (1999) observe, many of the changes in early childhood
education have been reforms. As they put it, ‘old plasticine in new shapes’ (p. 5); or as
Peacocke (1999) has written in the same volume, dispensing old wine in new bottles
rather than vision-making. Vision, by contrast, aims to break ‘out of the box’; it does not
necessarily accept the status quo, it attempts to take risks, and it encompasses reflection
and divergent thinking. It involves treating children as agents with an active role in
making their future happen. This is not to say that they are ‘hot-housed’, but rather
encouraged to exercise little c creativity, in the here-and-now.
These ideas can be seen as representing a logical and natural progression from the
recommendations of the Rumbold Report (DES, 1990) on 3- and 4-year-olds, which
advocated greater coherence and flexibility in education and care, at any rate for the
under-5s. There is a need for a co-ordinated attempt to provide continuity both
horizontally and vertically across the years of childhood from two and a half to 8, in a
way which holds at its heart, in its aims and in its enactment, children’s creativity. The
formal and informal curriculum for children aged 5 and over needs review at the levels
of 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 which
could be taken is the reduction of curriculum content, to enable a little more time for the
exercise 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 in
the curriculum of young children, setting this in the context of two former waves of
activity in creativity suggesting that the curriculum developments of the second wave are
insufficient 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 and
dilemmas.
Finally—to return to Craig and his lego: what would have made his experience
creative? 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;
 Creative Thinking in the Early Years of Education 153

• enabling him to have the space to keep it—but with reference to the wider needs of
the 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 was
waiting. And to have approached that moment in an embracing way might have been to
invite other events like this—with the potential to disrupt plans. But I would suggest that
to 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 provided
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opportunities for me to collect case studies to illustrate the arguments in this paper. All
names have been changed to protect anonymity. I am also grateful to academic and
practitioner colleagues whose feedback on earlier drafts of this paper has been invaluable
in refining it.

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