This paper describes research carried out in two
UK primary training providers as part of the
‘Creative Teachers for Creative Learners’ project,
funded by a Research and Development Award
from the Teacher Training Agency. Over the past
two years a study of trainees has been undertaken
at Manchester Metropolitan University and
Goldsmiths College, University of London, as part
of a larger collaboration with Bath Spa University
College. During the first year this looked at
undergraduates who were training to teach in
primary schools. They expressed their own notion
of the ‘creative person’ using cartoons and further
data was collected using a questionnaire. This
year, a task that had originally been piloted by
Bath Spa to gain an insight into where
postgraduate trainees located creativity within
their practice, was used to further explore the
undergraduates’ understanding of creativity while
they were on school experience placements.
This paper draws on data collected from two
cohorts of undergraduate trainees in each
institution. Comparisons will be drawn between
the two sets of data collected to establish how one
varies from the other and possible reasons for this
will be mooted. Initial findings indicate that the
Goldsmiths and MMU trainees expect to find
opportunities for creativity in most areas of the
curriculum with assumptions that certain subjects
offer more opportunities than others. However, as
the Goldsmiths and MMU trainees reflected on the
reality of teaching on their school experience
placements the data gathered offered some
interesting insights, which are particularly
pertinent in this time of further curriculum change
in primary education, including inhibitors of
creativity