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Between 1936 and 1969, around 1600 kneelers were produced for the new Anglican cathedral at Guildford in Surrey, southern England. This was a major collective devotional artwork, involving hundreds of embroiderers, mostly local women. The project was a distinctive form of community and collective artwork, that complicates established understandings of embroidery, craftwork, femininity and politics. It worked within guidelines for design and materials set by the interior designer Lady Prudence Maufe and her husband Sir Edward Maufe, the cathedral's architect. However, it also allowed for considerable autonomy and self-expression on the part of the volunteers. The kneeler collection has a rich and varied iconography that ranges from expected Christian symbolism to representations of modern technology and nuclear weaponry. What emerged over the length of the project was a complex expression of the worldview of post-war England, and particularly the England and Englishness of the Home Counties. This worldview attempted to combine faith in God with faith in technological progress, and to reconcile internationalism with confidence in British military power. The Guildford kneelers are best understood as a distinctive form of conservative modernity, an attempt to place the changes of the mid twentieth century into longer traditions of Christian worship and Englishness. • The 1600 kneelers at Guildford Cathedral are an important collective artwork. • Produced between 1936 and 1969 by hundreds of predominantly female craftworkers. • Challenges established progressive understandings of community artwork. • Iconography expresses the world-view of post-war middle-class England. • Interprets relationship between faith, technology and nationalism as conservative modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines the processes of creating a 'Storymaker Wheel', a creativity evaluation tool conceptualised with input from a children's book author, a children's book illustrator, academics and teachers, for teachers and pupils to use to support and develop their creative writing. It documents the ways in which teachers and pupils engaged with the Wheel in three schools in England: a primary pupil referral unit, a primary school and a secondary school. Interviews with teachers and pupils about the Storymaker Wheel, and classroom observations of the Wheel in use, expose some challenges of teaching creative writing within the current English educational context, which we discuss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives Arts activities may benefit people living with dementia. Social return on investment (SROI) analysis, a form of cost-benefit analysis, has the potential to capture the value of arts interventions, but few rigorous SROI analyses exist. This article presents a framework for an SROI analysis. Research Design and Methods One hundred twenty-five people with mild to severe dementia and 146 caregivers were recruited to the Dementia and Imagination study across residential care homes, a hospital and community venues in England and Wales for a 12-week visual arts program. Quantitative and qualitative data on quality of life, support, and program perceptions were obtained through interviews. SROI was undertaken to explore the wider social value of the arts activities. Results An input of £189,498 ($279,320/€257,338) to deliver the groups created a social value of £980,717 ($1,445,577/€1,331,814). This equates to a base case scenario of £/$/€5.18 of social value generated for every £/$/€1 invested. Sensitivity analysis produced a range from £/$/€3.20 to £/$/€6.62 per £/$/€1, depending on assumptions about benefit materialization; financial value of participants' time; and length of sustained benefit. Discussion To our knowledge, this is the first study applying SROI to an arts intervention for people with dementia. Arts-based activities appear to provide a positive SROI under a range of assumptions. Implications Decision makers are increasingly seeking wider forms of economic evidence surrounding the costs and benefits of activities. This analysis is useful for service providers at all levels, from local government to care homes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Imagination refers to creating mental representations of concepts, ideas, and sensations that are not contemporaneously perceived by the senses. Although it is key to human individuality, research on imagination is scarce. To address this gap, we developed here a new psychometric test to assess individual differences in imagination and explored the role of imagination for learning, creativity, and schizotypal beliefs. In a laboratory‐based (N = 180) and an online study (N = 128), we found that imagination is only weakly associated with learning achievement and creativity, accounting for 2–8% of the variance. By contrast, imagination accounted for 22.5% of the variance in schizotypal beliefs, suggesting overall that imagination may be more indicative of cognitive eccentricities rather than benefit the accumulation of knowledge or production of novel and useful ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author identifies the dichotomous nature of a government approach which insists on autonomy. Exhortations to communities to be independent while fostering dependent relations lead to a kind of paralysis that inhibits people's abilities to progress. These insights were gained in Salford, UK in a former working class community fatigued by government intervention. As part of an academic project focused on supporting local people's ideas, new ways of engaging were explored. However the researchers' role as project directors and the status of the university also had impacts on fostering selfdetermination. The author proposes that a reflexive strategy identifying and ameliorating the multiple points of government interventions in low-income communities would go far in nurturing people's productivity. This includes working with local intermediaries who have an intimate knowledge of the communities they serve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Recent explorations of the nature of contemporary social work, tending to differentiate managerial and techno-rational practices from ‘real’ relationship-based interventions, are suggestive of there being an art and a science of social work, echoing Snow’s argument in his ‘Two Cultures’ lecture of 1959 about the especially English tendency to damaging divisions in academia. The concept, and the dangers Snow identified, are revisited and applied to social work in this theoretical article, with the science of practice being located in evidence-informed approaches and its art in relationship-based work. Findings Social work has long incorporated approaches which draw on the strengths of the humanities and science ‘cultures’ respectively, and recognises what each has to offer; it may also be considered to some extent as belonging to a ‘Third Culture’, along with other applied fields. Common to any culture, however, as applied within the profession, must be its ethical base. Applications As Snow noted, polarity between art and science can lead to common ground being lost which in social work may ultimately disadvantage service users. The professional value base provides the basis for a ‘social work culture’ as long as this is not itself divided by unconstructive schisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the growing interest amongst gerontologists and literary and cultural scholars alike, in arts participation, ageing and the artistic outputs of older people, comparatively little attention has yet been paid to theatre and drama. Likewise, community or participatory theatre has long been used to address issues affecting marginalised or excluded groups, but it is a presently under-utilised medium for exploring ageing or for conveying positive messages about growing older. This paper seeks to address this lack of attention through a detailed case study of the place of one particular theatre – the Victoria/New Victoria Theatre in North Staffordshire, England – in the lives of older people. It provides an overview of the interdisciplinary Ages and Stages project which brought together social gerontologists, humanities scholars, psychologists, anthropologists and theatre practitioners, and presents findings from: the archival and empirical work exploring the theatre's pioneering social documentaries and its archive; individual/couple and group interviews with older people involved with the theatre (as audience members, volunteers, employees and sources); and ethnographic data gathered throughout the study. The findings reaffirm the continuing need to challenge stereotypes that the capacity for creativity and participation in later life unavoidably and inevitably declines; show how participation in creative and voluntary activities shapes meanings associated with key life transitions such as bereavement and retirement; and emphasise the positive role that theatre and drama can play as a medium for the inclusion of both older and younger people. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Context: Our acute trust recently opened a unit for people with acute medical problems and dementia. As well as environmental changes, we realised that an explicit statement of the values, beliefs and attitudes of our new team was required. Aims and objectives: We wanted our manifesto to be a collaborative document with real meaning for us as practitioners. We hoped adopting this method would empower the staff team to take an active part in shaping the kind of care we want to offer. We ran a workshop that used comics and practitioner research methods. We aimed to get 'under the surface' of practice and allow a liminal space for multidisciplinary communication. In this article, we aim to explain the principles of our practice, describe what we did as part of our induction for staff on the unit, show the outcome (our ward manifesto) and discuss what learning might have taken place. Conclusion: Staff engaged enthusiastically in the workshop. The comics produced, and analysis of them, allowed practitioners to look at practice in a new way. There was real communication between team members from different disciplines. The manifesto shows the complexity of our values in a simple, accessible way and is now displayed on the unit. Implications for practice: Innovative learning methods can be useful when exploring the values of practice Creating a safe, liminal space allows creativity and honest communication within a team [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creativity is widely accepted as being an important outcome of schooling. Yet there are many different views about what it is, how best it can be cultivated in young people and whether or how it should be assessed. And in many national curricula creativity is only implicitly acknowledged and seldom precisely defined. This paper offers a five dimensional definition of creativity which has been trialed by teachers in two field trials in schools in England. The paper suggests a theoretical underpinning for defining and assessing creativity along with a number of practical suggestions as to how creativity can be developed and tracked in schools. Two clear benefits of assessing progress in the development of creativity are identified: 1) teachers are able to be more precise and confident in developing young people's creativity, and 2) learners are better able to understand what it is to be creative (and to use this understanding to record evidence of their progress). The result would seem to be a greater likelihood that learners can display the full range of their creative dispositions in a wide variety of contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study compares the effect of dance on affect and cognition to music or exercise, in a young, non-clinical population. Participants were asked to complete tests of mood and creativity before and after spending 5 min either listening to music, dancing, cycling or sitting quietly. Both dancing and passively listening to music enhanced positive affect, decreased negative affect and reduced feelings of fatigue. Cycling and sitting quietly had no effect on positive mood or feelings of fatigue. Moreover, dancing and passively listening to music had dissociable effects on different aspects of creativity, with greater change in positive affect being associated with greater enhancement in measures of verbal and non-verbal creativity, respectively. We suggest that these findings support the use of either short duration dancing or passively listening to music as potentially powerful tools in enhancing emotional well-being and different aspects of divergent thinking in non-clinical settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on an innovative approach for teaching creativity in Design and Technology education based on the notions of authentic learning. Working with secondary schools in England and Ireland, the research team has been developing an intervention known as ‘Designing Our Tomorrow’ (DOT) which introduced students to the important principles of Inclusive Design (also known as Universal Design). Through interview and survey data, the team gained insights into students’ responses to the DOT intervention and they found that students’ creativity and empathy were enhanced following their engagement with the intervention materials. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Never before have public sector jobs been so threatened. Fear and anxiety have shifted their focus, from performance to survival. With reference to immediately contemporary works on the NHS in particular, such as Mandelstam (2011) and Leys and Player (2011), the paper establishes the factual validity of the crisis. The authors conducted a series of workshops for public sector staff to enable them to explore their reactions to the current situation. It is possible to identify increasing levels of denial and other forms of resistance to change similar to those first identified by Menzies' (1959). Drawing on the work of Bion (cited Obholzer & Roberts, 1994) the paper considers the dangers of a retreat to the paranoid schizoid position, and identifies a theoretical clue in Halton (2004) for turning the trauma of change into a creative opportunity. Art has access to emotional, spiritual and creative facets of the human mind that science cannot explore. Klein's (1975) consideration of the infantile and regressive aspect of art is acknowledged. The paper then considers what is revealed by a study of specific works of art which were presented in the workshops; including paintings by Bosch, Rousseau, Breughel and Goya. The work of Zagier-Roberts (1998) and Winnicott (1971) is called upon to endorse the usefulness of such a playful collage of responses. Art can be used to help people move through Kubler Ross' stages of bereavement (1997); not to acceptance but out of the paranoid schizoid position into the depressive position (Klein 1975). Revisiting the work of Halton (2004) and the concept of evolutionary creativity, a move on from the depressive position can begin. Collective validation can be affirmed through a rebooting of the essential public sector values while a radical turning away from organisational priorities, to face the service user, provides a more far reaching optimism than any envisaged by an essentially limited demand for modernisation. In conclusion the paper considers the recent contributions of Dienst (2011) and Dumenil and Levy (2011) to advocate tactical resistance to the denigration of the public sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: School change is always local and dependent on the kinds of resources that are available. In this paper we explore the notion that knowledge is an important resources for vernacular educational reform. In order to explore this contention, we use the lens of cross-curricular changes undertaken by English schools in receipt of funding from Creative Partnerships. Our research identified three dominant change patterns – themes and topics in primary and secondary schools and skills-based subjects in secondary. Our study also showed that in making these changes schools had little recourse to their own collective histories or to international examples. We argue that, while policy was a significant delimiting factor on innovation, the problem-posing and solution-generating activities undertaken by schools may well have developed differently if a wider range of intellectual resources was available to them. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper explores research-focused reflective creative partnership at the heart of Dance Partners for Creativity (DPC), a qualitative, participatory research project located in secondary school creative partnership initiatives in England. It researched how dance artists and teachers partnered as ‘external’ and ‘school’ partners respectively, to nurture creativity in students aged 11–14. The wider educational context to the research was characterised by tension between striving for excellence harnessed to performativity as characterised by Ball on the one hand, and expanding opportunities for creativity in schools on the other; the two in tension with one another as discussed by the authors of the present article elsewhere. DPC sought to open space between creativity and performativity, enabling partners to co-research and to co-lead learning in the arts. The paper explores emergent practice applying McWilliam’s concept of ‘meddling in the middle’ originally proposed in relation to pedagogy in schools. The paper suggests research-focused partnerships in DPC were characterised by ‘meddling’. It discusses stretches and challenges documented in the study, revealing ways in which partnerships were dynamic and sometimes uncomfortable, whilst offering exciting potential for change. It suggests the retrogressive current policy frame in England may benefit from leaps made possible where partners in creative learning are curiosity-driven ‘meddlers in the middle’: a productive form of reflective practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This reflective piece – written primarily to provoke discussion – raises some questions about and for the recent ‘creativity agenda’ in educational policy in England, suggesting that something fundamental is missing. The author argues that ‘creativity’ has characteristically been defined in recent policy discourse as a set of skills concerned with developing independent thinking, problem-solving and flexible working. ‘Creativity’ thus turns out to be intimately and explicitly allied to ‘employability’. The author believes that creativity, on the contrary, is stimulated by the encouragement of vivid inner lifeworlds, a sense of imaginative interiority and a sensuously-felt subjectivity – as exemplified in S.T. Coleridge’s poem Kubla Khan. She argues that these are part of pedagogic responsibility as well as a sine qua non for the work of the imagination. The author is writing in her role as poet (who also leads creative writing workshops, including for teachers), rather than as a researcher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often display impairments in creativity, yet savant artists with ASD are reported to produce highly novel and original artistic outputs. To explore this paradox, we assessed nine savant artists with ASD, nine talented art students, nine non-artistically talented individuals with ASD, and nine individuals with mild/moderate learning difficulties (MLD) on tasks in and out of their domain of expertise. This was to ascertain whether the performance of the savant artists was related to their artistic ability, their diagnosis of ASD or their level of intellectual functioning. Results demonstrated that the responses of the art students were more creative (as assessed on measures of fluency, originality, elaboration, and flexibility) than the savant, ASD, and MLD groups on a drawing task. Although the savants did produce more elaborative responses than the ASD and MLD groups, no differences were observed on the other indices of creativity. On a non-drawing task, the savants produced more original outputs than the ASD and MLD groups (scoring similarly to the art students), but group differences were not observed on the other measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the relationship between artistic practice and mobility through a focus on the translocal circulation of theatre. It works against the assumption that art and its creative practices are tied to particular contexts. Instead I suggest that examining translocal connection provides a framework through which to consider how practices of art-making are emplaced and differentiated, whilst also encompassing physical and imaginative movement. I demonstrate this argument by examining the writing, casting, and staging of the play M. Butterfly in New York City, London and Singapore. I analyse how these creative practices were related to translocal travel, but also demonstrate that such activities spilled beyond the performance to reorganise socio-cultural relations. As a result, my analysis views creativity as an interrelated set of artistic and social processes. This article thus extends contemporary geographical work on art and performance in two ways: first, by considering how artistic practices draw upon, and are influenced by, spatially extensive flows of people, finance and ideas; and second, by considering the creative effects of artworks as they circulate through different contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There have been moves in a number of countries in recent years to develop appropriate pedagogies for the teaching of community/heritage languages, distinct from foreign language and mother tongue models. At the same time there has been a growing interest in ways of developing learners' creative abilities and there are grounds for believing that an approach which gives priority to this may be especially fruitful for bilingual/bicultural learners. This study examined the contribution that arts-based creativity involving stories, art works, dance, drama and multimedia can make to the learning and teaching of community/heritage languages in the British context. Using largely qualitative research methods, data were collected in four London schools, two mainstream and two complementary (voluntary, community based) over three terms. Key findings arising from analysis clustered around four broad areas: language and literacy, cognition, intercultural understanding, personal and social development. As well as identifying the impact on learners, insights were gained into pedagogy and professional development and these are also commented upon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers are often urged to nurture creativity but their conceptions of creativity in specific school subjects may have limitations which weaken their attempts to do so. Primary school teachers in England were asked to rate lesson activities according to the opportunity they offered children for creative thought in science. The teachers could, overall, distinguish between creative and reproductive activities but, as predicted, there was evidence of narrow conceptions of school science creativity, biased towards fact finding, practical activity, and technological design. Some teachers saw creativity in essentially reproductive activities and in what simply stimulated interest and on-task talk. Some implications and recommendations for teacher training and professional development are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a socio-political analysis of New Labour's rhetorical uses of the idea and values of creativity to shape cultural policy in England. It examines how the current idea of creativity in policy discussions has been politically reconceptualised as a means of responding to broader socio-political and economic agendas. The paper explores the extent to which the New Labour's social-market political paradigm has contributed to shaping and reshaping the government's creativity rhetoric. It is suggested that the English model of creativity in policy discourse is politically constructed rather than being based in the available literature and research associated with creativity in the fields of psychology and sociology. Drawing on these discussions, the paper suggests that there are five distinctive characteristics of the English model of creativity and offer a critical analysis about some underlying assumptions embedded in these rhetorical positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents findings from a national project in England, The Power of Reading (Centre for Literacy in Primary Education), which has involved to date 41 projects over 5 years, in 16 Local Authorities nationally, with 900 schools and 1,350 teachers. The paper presents findings for the first 4 years. Our data demonstrate how professional development has increased teachers' knowledge of children's literature and developed their confidence in using a wide range of creative pedagogies based on texts. The paper draws on evidence to describe how the emotional power of texts can affect both teachers and children and change their engagement as readers. A range of evidence demonstrates children's responses to texts and their developing understanding through writing, talk, drawing and art work. We provide evidence to show how these factors have increased children's motivation and attainment as readers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much has been written about Red House, the home of Jane and William Morris between 1859 and 1865, as an example of architectural innovation and a place of artistic fellowship. In accounts by Morris's contemporaries and subsequent scholars, Red House has also been represented as a site of conviviality, creativity and youthful idealism, where a utopian way of life proved unable to withstand the vagaries of mature responsibilities. This essay reconsiders the happy memories attached to Red House and explores how the affective investments that linked people, spaces and objects were created and enhanced by a shared process of creative improvisation there. Drawing on recent scholarly work on feelings, emotions and affect, this essay pays particular attention to the gendered experience of intimacy and creativity at Red House and seeks to redress a tendency to discount women's creative agency in the household. In the web of relationships at Red House, expressed and enacted through practices of creative labour and hospitality, Jane Morris and Georgiana Burne-Jones articulated an increased capacity for agency not merely as aesthetic objects but as creative subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article traces some lines of connection between teachers' efforts to reshape the way that teaching and learning are done in local settings, and larger-scale shifts and tensions in education policy. The article begins with an account of opposition to the changes that European governments inspired by global policy orthodoxy seek to make in their education systems. It suggests that the intellectual and political resources that supply such opposition were accumulated in most cases in the immediate post-war period, and replenished in the social conflicts of the 1960s and 1970s. It raises the possibility that these resources are now - save in a largely nostalgic sense - exhausted, and cannot contribute to a remaking of education systems. This notion is tested by exploring the ideas and practices of teachers who, working under the banner of 'creativity', are attempting to break away from the standards agenda that they have inherited. In doing so, the article suggests, they may find themselves drawing from social, democratic traditions of education, developed not just in England, but elsewhere in Europe; educational internationalism is not the sole property of policy elites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper details the early stages of research which, through exploring new methodological and conceptual spaces, is being carried out with the aim of contributing to redressing the balance between creativity and performativity, in secondary level dance education in England. The Dance Partners for Creativity Research (DPC) Project is a co-participative study involving university-based researchers and school-based partner researchers physically and metaphorically stretching across boundaries between 'university' and 'school' spaces. We are investigating the kinds of creative partnerships manifested between dance-artists and teachers in co-developing the creativity of 11-14 year olds, and how these partnerships develop. The aim is to work towards transformation for dance-artist and dance-teacher partnership practice and invigorate young people's creativity in dance both in the settings within which the research takes place and through dissemination/provocation in new settings within and beyond UK dance education. In particular this paper focuses on the theoretical framework as developed around dance creativity and partnership in education prior to in-depth entry into the field, with some methodological detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relation between popular music and creative cities through the example of Manchester between 1976 and 1997. The formation of a local music scene is analysed through the notion of urban creative milieu stating its historical debt to the city industrial heritage; place-images produced by the local popular music scene are analysed as visual, aural and lyrical productions. The article examines the consolidation of the considered local popular music scene through bottom-up and autonomous projects and the regeneration of some areas of Manchester. It looks at the role of the 'New Left' municipality, its difficulties in recognizing the city's creative capital and its attitude towards the production and consumption of popular music. The conclusions present some general reflections on the Manchester legacy and its significance for a definition of creativity at the urban level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the development and use of the Creative Learning Assessment (CLA) as a means of evidencing, supporting and promoting children's creative learning in arts-based contexts. The research team at the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) worked with a group of teachers in inner-city Lambeth primary schools to develop an assessment system to record the impact of a creative curriculum on children's achievement and to enable schools to justify a broad-based provision. The Assessing Learning and Communication in Creative Learning Contexts project, funded by CfBT Education Trust (CfBT), aimed to offer teachers a view of creative learning development and a framework for teacher assessment. It set out to provide a close focus on the learner and a valuable source of information for curriculum planning. This article discusses the effect of working with the CLA on children's learning and on teachers' practice through a case study of one project school, and the implications for schools and classrooms from the perspectives of the researcher and the teacher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within this paper, a conceptualised triadic schema is hypothesised for locating emotion within a creative, learning and product orientated Design and Technology experience. The research is based upon an extensive literature review that has been synthesised and juxtaposed with the broad aspirational aims of the subject. The schema, based upon abductive reasoning and grounded theory, ultimately conceptualises the overarching theme of emotion within a creative, learning and product orientated Design and Technology experience within the Primary and Secondary stages of England’s education system. The triadic schema offers an additional opportunity in meta-theorising how the broad aspirational aims of the subject, as outlined in the English national curriculum statement of importance for Design and Technology, can be achieved through recognising the powerful overarching concept of emotion within three emerging domains: Person, Process and Product. The central tenet of this paper is the recognition of emotion within a triadic schema for meta-theorising the place of emotion within a creative, learning and product orientated Design and Technology experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates creativity in university laboratories, which are key places in developing new ideas and knowledge, and their persistent creativity. Analysing the Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University, the UK and the Pharmacology Laboratory of National Taiwan University, College of Medicine, established for 135 years and 85 years, respectively; the following findings are obtained. Preserving excellent tradition and academic style, making a careful choice of research fields and attentive exploration and management of them, and selection of and educating research talent, are three crucial elements associated with achievement in different fields whether through the harsh initial period immediately after establishing a lab, the growth period, the transformation of research topics or maintenance over many generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies five influences on design & technology education in England—the government agency, the curriculum developer, the teacher, the pupil and the researcher. Using developments in school design & technology education and examples from England the paper describes a range of activities involving one or more influences noting the implications each has for creativity in school design & technology education. In conclusion the paper summarises the impact of the influences and suggests an approach to support further productive collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Textile design is a subject that encompasses both design and technology; aesthetically pleasing patterns and forms must be set within technical parameters to create successful fabrics. When considering education methods in design programmes, identifying the most relevant learning approach is key to creating future successes. Yet are the most suitable teaching methods being utilised? This paper discusses the learning styles of textile and fashion design students at The University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University and identifies their overall learning style biases. It then goes on to compare these two institutional approaches and examines whether the teaching methods used suitably match student learning biases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is written in response to the article published in issue 39.3 of this journal, in November 2005, on the nature of the Key Stage 2 National Curriculum reading tests: ‘Examining England's National Curriculum assessments: an analysis of the KS2 reading test questions’ by Anne Kispal of the National Foundation for Educational Research. It argues that, far from providing a valid and rewarding assessment experience for pupils as Kispal suggests, the primary English tests at the end of KS2 are invalid as a measuring instrument and are having a damaging effect on pedagogy. The tests and the information on them provided by the Qualifications and Curriculum Agency are based on a misleading unidimensional conception of reading literacy attainment. Because the test assessment simply adds together marks achieved for very different cognitive skills, it propagates a dysfunctional model of literacy pedagogy that conflates and confuses two separate developmental trajectories – word reading and text comprehension. The article goes on to argue that the unidimensionality of the national tests and their pedagogic apparatus has constricted the primary English curriculum in ways that are damaging for young pupils and for the national need for creativity and enterprise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2004, the Department for Education and Skills in England published its Five Year Strategy for Children and Learners (DfES, 2004). It was preceded by Excellence and Enjoyment: a strategy for primary schools (DfES, 2003). ‘Excellence and enjoyment’ seems to constitute an ambiguity, even a contradiction. The government's view is otherwise. It states that enjoyment (for pupils) is a consequence of excellent teaching. In turn, excellent teaching is said to be more assured if it is personalised and creative. This official logic is questionable. A different interpretation is offered. Global capitalism is placing fiscal pressures on the public expenditure of the nation-state, and new accommodations and justifications have to be made by government as it continues to re-focus the education system towards an economic purpose. In this endeavour it must gain public and professional assent. Informed by critical theorists, it is argued here that ‘excellence’ associates with a producer ethic; ‘enjoyment’ with a consumer ethic. The former enables the capital accumulation process within a social-democratic welfare state; the latter justifies the policies of accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thirty-six per cent of 18–19-year-old sixth-form and further education college leavers in the UK currently go on to university. A majority of the remaining 64% apparently go into work or work-related training. Yet, for this latter group, as with the former, 16–19 education was supposed by the Department for Education and Employment to equip them with the skills applicable in the workplace, where a student’s ability to apply skills and knowledge in a variety of contexts—i.e. creativity—is as important as having a qualification. Creative skills, according to the Construction Industry Training Board, are key requisite skills in the workplace and also key to job and business success. This paper examines the extent to which assessment objectives in the 16–19 education curriculum in England require students to demonstrate creative skills in their work, be it class assessment or external examinations. It finds that all but two subject specifications and syllabuses (in one discipline) explicitly state creativity as an assessment objective, although a few other subject specifications (in other disciplines) required candidates to demonstrate some creative skills in their work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of arts in hospices is now well established. However, the voluntary nature of much hospice work in England encourages most regular creative activities to be provided by volunteers with minimal financial support. This article looks at how a successful arts and crafts exhibition for a hospice community was staged by a volunteer arts worker, helped by art and design students from the local university. It was not intended that the exhibition should be a research project, however, It became clear that to learn more about arts practice within a hospice environment, it would need to be appraised in some way. The project leader (and author) adopted an approach which reflected on the responses of people Involved in the preparation and staging of the exhibition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article asks what happens to the learning of young children when they work regularly with a professional visual artist in their school. Through Creative Partnerships, a national programme initiated in 2002 to bring creative professionals into schools across England, some school children have had the opportunity for sustained project work with artists. Examined here is the context in which children (ages 4, 5, 6 and 7) worked one day a week during the academic year of 2003–2004 with Roy Smith, resident artist in Hythe Community School. Key to the children's drawing, painting and talking was close focused attention on details of three-dimensional objects, portraits, still-life works and their own creations. Smith's conversations with the children routinely included three and four-syllable technical terms, biographical details of artists' lives and comparative critiques. Within several months, the art of the children reflected understanding of concepts such as foregrounding, and they showed confidence in working with problems Smith set up for them (“What do you think would happen if...?”). Particularly important here is the combination of manual and linguistic work that demands attention to detail, receptive understanding of complex terms and processes, and familiarity with the analytical and sequential thinking needed to identify and solve problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract A case study is reported investigating the nature of paired talk and the role of friendship in collaborative creative writing activities. This forms the initial phase of a larger research project driven by socio-cultural theory, studying the beneficial effects of friendship pairing and the role of the computer tool in the development of creative writing skills. The joint poem writing episodes of four 8-year-old girls, one friendship and one acquaintance pair, were observed on a number of occasions during a two-week long literacy project. The observations were of ongoing classroom activities in the IT suite and in the literacy classroom of their school; the observed children worked alongside the rest of the class in their natural context. It was predicted that there would be differences between the two pairs in terms of the process and the outcome of their collaborations which could be explained by the differences in their respective relationships. To investigate such differences (if any), a ‘functional model’ of discourse analysis was used, developed specifically for the context of collaborative creative writing. It is claimed that the proposed model is useful to describe discourse patterns characteristic of paired writing and to identify productive discourse styles in this specific setting. It helps to understand how the collaborating writers engage in talk to cope with the demands of the task, and how they use discourse to support different phases of the joint writing process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]