Monthly Musing: On Creativity...

Last week, in the final week of the Spring term, I ended up supporting in a Year 1 class.

One of the younger children I support each week was very clear they wanted to stay in class – it was the final session of their D&T lessons on castles and there was no way they were missing it. I’m not going to lie, there was an initial sense of trepidation. A high-needs Year 1 class, junk modelling, last week of term… what could go wrong?

Well… as it turns out… nothing.

It was one of those afternoons that just worked. Creating, sharing, collaborating, supporting, helping – busy, but purposeful, and full of a kind of energy that felt contained rather than chaotic. The class teacher and I exchanged a few glances along the lines of, “Oh… this is actually fine.” A useful reminder, for me, about how quickly we can make assumptions about what might happen, and how often those assumptions don’t quite play out. I was reminded of the Chinese proverb: When men speak about the future, the gods laugh.

And also – more quietly – a reminder of something else. How naturally children create when the conditions are right. They weren’t worrying about whether it looked right. They weren’t holding back in case it wasn’t “good enough”. They were just… making. Trying things out, adapting, starting again when something didn’t quite work, and carrying on.

It stayed with me, partly because of how it contrasted with something I’ve been working on over the past few weeks. I had found myself sitting with a bit of a gap. A sense that whilst we are increasingly able to measure academic progress with precision, the relational conditions that underpin it – safety, connection, trust, regulation, belonging – are much harder to capture in a way that feels both meaningful and usable in practice.

There are tools that exist, of course, but there was a sense that something wasn’t quite aligned with what I see, day in and day out, in schools. It wasn’t frustration, exactly. More curiosity. And then a quiet realisation that I didn’t have to keep looking for something that already existed. I could create something that was entirely fit for purpose – something that reflected the work as it actually is, rather than trying to shape the work to fit the tool.

Once that shift happened, I found myself quite absorbed in the process. Ideas leading to other ideas, small adjustments becoming more considered changes, things being tested, tweaked and reworked. It wasn’t particularly neat, but it was enjoyable – and it felt useful. A sense that I have a bit more space than I used to, enough, perhaps, for that kind of thinking to return.

Because creativity does seem to need that. Space. Capacity. A mind that isn’t entirely taken up with navigating what feels uncertain or overwhelming. When that space isn’t there, creating can feel difficult – or unnecessary – or simply out of reach. And when it begins to return, it’s often quite subtle at first. A bit more curiosity. A willingness to try something out. The beginnings of an idea that you follow, just to see where it goes.

Which has made me think more broadly about creativity. Not as something separate or additional, but as something that sits within both intention and action – perhaps even as a natural next step, when something is needed and we allow ourselves the time and space to respond.

Because creativity asks something slightly different of us. It asks us to stay with something that isn’t fully formed, to tolerate a level of uncertainty, and to resist the pull towards quick answers or neat outcomes, giving something the time it needs to take shape. And that depends on conditions – time, of course, but also space, headspace, flexibility, and a willingness to let things be unfinished for a while. And, perhaps most importantly, enough safety – internally and externally – to have a go without shutting it down too quickly.

Which brings me back to that Year 1 classroom. Because those conditions were there. Not perfectly, but sufficiently. Enough structure to hold it, enough flexibility to allow movement, and enough relational safety for the children to try things out without too much hesitation. And within that, creativity emerged quite naturally.

It does make me wonder when that shifts.

I was reminded of a piece of research where young children were asked what a simple object – a coat hanger – could be used for. The range of ideas at Reception age was expansive, imaginative, often completely unexpected. When the same question was revisited over time, the answers became fewer, more functional, more… correct. Not because the children had become less capable, but because something had shifted in how they were thinking.

When we begin to second-guess, when creativity becomes tied up with outcomes or time or how something might be perceived, when it moves from something quite instinctive to something that feels more considered – and sometimes more constrained.

In schools, the arts – and opportunities for creativity more broadly – can sometimes feel like they sit just outside of the core. And yet, they are often the spaces where we see something quite different. Engagement that doesn’t need to be chased, collaboration that emerges without too much prompting, and moments where children show you something of themselves that might not come through in other ways.

Perhaps creativity isn’t something separate from intention and action, but something that grows out of them. A response to something that is needed. Not always planned. Not always straightforward. But shaped through curiosity, and brought into being by staying with it long enough.

(And perhaps something I’ll share a little more about soon… once it’s had a bit more time to take shape.)