Partnerships for learning:

extending knowledge and

understanding of creative
writing processes in the ITT year
Kate Domaille
Lecturer in Secondary English, University of Southampton

John Edwards
Lecturer in Secondary English, University of Portsmouth

Abstract
This article explores the idea that in order to improve the ways we teach
children to write creatively it is worth exploring how we, as teachers and
writers, do that ourselves. It describes some of the stages of a curriculum
development project undertaken in the Portsmouth and Southampton
Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) English teams, begun in
2004. The project was supported by funding from the Esmee Fairbairn
Foundation and was designed to foster a range of learning activities for
trainee teachers in the area of teaching creative writing to pupils in
schools. The project that was developed had multiple aims: subject
knowledge development in trainee English teachers; pedagogic
exploration amongst all teachers involved looking at how the difficult
area of teaching creative writing might be better addressed. This article
evaluates the aims of the project and some of the outcomes and argues
for recognition of the training year as a vital area for exploring issues in
teaching, beyond competence. The article draws on a variety of sources,
including participant observation notes made in writing workshops,
responses to a questionnaire completed by project participants and
excerpts from writing collected across the project produced by teachers
and pupils.

Key Words
Writers,partnership and 177; creative teaching and learning, seEf-esteem,
motivation, teacher training,

0 N a t e a n d Contributors 2006 71
Partnerships for learning: extending knowledge and Understanding

Introduction
This article will describe and evaluate a small-scale project which
developed from a number of concerns felt by tutors working to train
teachers for secondary English classrooms in the UK. Both tutors had
observed the profile of applicants to their respective courses and noted
how much more common it was for prospective teachers to describe
their strengths in terms of reading: a factor noted by Goodwyn (2002),
Ellis (2003). Far less common was the bid for a place on a secondary
English course based on teachers presenting themselves as writers. In the
first instance we were interested in how we could address issues of
subject knowledge development in the teaching of writing through a
project specifically devoted to creative writing. Like Hopper (2005) we
believed that the opportunity for trainees to focus on an area of practice
would deepen their understanding of the extent and range of the
professional role of a teacher. Our purpose was to develop a curriculum
project that could bring together trainee teachers with more experienced
teachers, developing insights into good practice together. We believed
that a curriculum project that had the two groups of teachers working
together might offer a new opportunity to strengthen professional
development and exchange. As moves are afoot to re-write the National
Curriculum for English, we felt it pertinent that our trainees should
experience the wide ranging views held within the English teaching
profession, valuing particular aspects of curriculum and arguing for their
extension. These aims together - to develop subject knowledge and
strengthen partnerships for learning - formed the basis of a funding bid
to explore the ways in which we might extend the range of different
writing activities in the various quarters of our courses: for trainees, for
mentors and pupil groups.

Writing for pleasure

The question of improvement of writing is one that continues to exercise
policy makers and teachers alike. Though Boston (in Aksthana A, 2006)
has declared Britain to be one of the heaviest ‘tested’ nations, the test
results in writing show a stubborn unwillingness to improve at the rates
desired. Teaching pupils to write well remains one of the bigger
challenges English teachers face. There are good role models of teachers
who have become writers (Roddy Doyle, Joanne Harris, Philip Pullman)
and plenty of examples of established writers working with schools (see
the Writers in the Schools website) but most English teachers aren’t
writers, as Grainger (2005) points out. The most usual advancement of
English knowledge for prospective English teachers is through extended
literary study. This distinguishes English teachers from other creative arts
teachers such as music, art or dance who could not teach without
recourse to their own craft and the processes involved in learning it
(Grainger, 2005).

72 English in Education V01.40 No.2 2006

 Kate Domaille a n d John Edwards

In more recent years the ‘crafting’ of writing has become regulated into
frameworks to produce different kinds of writing for different purposes
and audiences. The National Curriculum in its various incarnations since
1988 has set down the conventions of writing into identifiable ‘triplets’ of
skills, such as the creative response triplet, ‘imagine, explore, entertain’ .
In turn these have been integrated into exam specification assessment
criteria. In most GCSE specifications the purpose of ‘writing to entertain’
may amount to little more than 5% of the overall grade award, a single
piece of coursework in most instances.

Creative writing, viewed as part of the staple diet of the English

curriculum in schools, has experienced a mixed reception over the past
twenty years. In part, this is due to the ever increasing content of the
English curriculum and its attendant political profile in public debate. As
Marshall suggests:

the battles over the curriculum in the last ten years . . . . have
forced English teachers to define and redefine their subject
philosophies in the light of the policy demands made on them
(Marshall, 2000:2)

Often these demands, couched in legislation or tightly woven policy

documents, have left little space for individual, professional creative
judgement to flourish and teachers have been governed by the pragmatic
demands of Standard Assessment Tests and school league tables (Craft,
2005; Grainger, 2005; Marshall, 2004b).

Abbs (1982) located the high point of creative work in English teaching
to the period of ‘child-centred practice’ which flourished during the 1970s
and 1980s. The emphasis on personal response and expression which
characterised this era is captured by Witkin who claimed:

the personal development of the pupil is really the whole raison-

d’etre of arts curricula. By personal development’ is meant the
child’sprogressive mastey of new and more complex levels of
sensate experience (Witkin, 1974:49)

English teachers of the time whom Witkin cites, appeared to share this
pedagogic stance:

I use the lessons as a space in which people can think and

review situations and be themselves and discuss whatever they
want to discuss and where they can write with a view to using
writing as the cystallisation of thought (1974:58)

Yet Abbs was critical of the unfocused and indulgent view of creative

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Partnerships for learning: extending knowledge and understanding

practice in English teaching which often produced work of variable

quality and where the child’s whim or impulse was prioritised over
content, process and critical evaluation.

Whilst creative writing might have lost its privileged position in the
English classroom, the interest and support for creative writing in
classrooms hasn’t been lost entirely. In 2004, in both partnerships there
were many trainees who described themselves as writers, some who had
a degree of success in publishing. According to surveys and observations
undertaken by Dart (2001); Ellis, (2005) many English teachers would
appear to uphold the principle of creative writing as an important means
of exploring personal feelings and of writing as an end in itself.

The project
The project commenced in November 2004 with a first workshop which
was attended by 35 participants - teachers and trainees together. At this
workshop we asked the participants to complete a short questionnaire.
One wrote:
creative writing is crucial tofinding space within the
curriculum for writing for writing k sake ... removing
boundaries and pre-requisites allows pupils to eqlore writing
for pleasure.

Another claimed:
creative writing is one of the only areas that we teach that is
totally subjective and from personal experience.

When asked whether creative writing was a valuable aspect of pupil

experience and development in English as a subject there was an
overwhelming YES. Responses included:
Absolutely, but the teaching of creative writing in English is not
creative
- - enough.

Teaching is prescriptive in order to meet coune work criteria.

Others suggested that:

Creativity is imperative ifstudents are to continue to enjoy
English whilst covering the Literacy objectives. However,
creativity is increasingly lost in the rush to examinations and
objectives more broadly.

The word yramework’ inhibits and stifles creativity, suggesting

constraint.

most neglected area of English teaching currently

most enjoyed by pupils, least practised

74 English In Educatfon Vo1.40No.2 2006

 Kate Domaille and John Edwards

the most loved, the least practised form of writing.. . particularly

when they leave school, they m q never do it again.

What these responses indicate is that classrooms are crowded sites which
d o not provide the potential for individual thought and feeling in the
type of private space reported below in pupils’ accounts of their own
writing practices.

The possibility exists that if creative writing is to be undertaken in a

meaningful way and is to become a regular, disciplined communal and
individual process, that it may have to be conducted outside the
constraints of timetabled lessons and become part of the fabric of extra-
curricula activities by which pupils can explore, experiment and share
within a supportive community as outlined by Jim Riordan below. Craft
(2005) argues that there are fundamental tensions between the prescribed
curriculum, loaded with propositional knowledge, and the
encouragement of teachedpupil creativity. Consequently she proposes
that there is a need in education for a ‘possibility space’ (200539) in
which pupils are given opportunities to risk-take, explore and review
their writing.

One of the ways in which teachers of creative writing might gain greater
confidence with introducing creative work is if they had new ways of
being able to assess the processes and outcomes. Marshall (20041,
drawing on the work of Sadler, argued that there was a need to examine
pupil creative response as evidence of different kinds of attainment, and
that the assessment frames need to be opened up, viewing success as
‘heading towards a horizon rather than a fixed goal’ (2004:25).Craft
(2005) endorses this idea with an inclusive stance that everyone can be
viewed as having creative potential ... ‘(in we accept a spectrum of
knowledge’ (2005:30)as evidence, rather than specific, defined outcomes.
More contemporary debates about creative learning appear still to value
what Witkin described as ‘sensate experience’ but now promote other
models that support craft and skill. Marshall refers to creative practice
being fostered through introduction to ‘guild knowledge’ where reading
and writing processes are interwoven to create a stronger idea of what
might constitute a successful piece of writing.

Schools’ context
The teachers in our regions all worked within the tensions described
above - in a curriculum heavy in content and with the need to comply
with externally imposed policies relating to assessment. However, there
were other professional issues at the forefront of advisory team action in
2004/05. The chief complaint registered in Heads of English meetings
was that it was achievable to teach specific skills to pupils and to help
them to better craft writing if the frames were provided. In the short term

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Pafinerships for learning: extending knowledge and understanding

there were clearly identifiable strategies to use to encourage greater

control over writing, although these appeared to be viewed as largely to
do with accuracy and grammatical certainty. What the Heads of English
also described was that there was little evidence that teaching greater
control of writing did much to improve pupils’ motivations to write. In
the partnerships in which we work the Heads of English expressed
concern that unless they could find other ways to engage pupils with
writing they had little optimism in pupils’ improved writing skills being
sustained. It was this whole issue of motivation - or apparent lack of it -
that formed the basis of the project. What ideas, knowledge and practices
could be developed with English teachers that might help to intervene in
the lack of desire of pupils to write beyond the classroom? The starting
point for the project then was to look at teachers’ approaches to this area
of practice.

Teacher writing workshops

The first writing workshop was attended by 35 teachers and trainees.
Our first stages of the project were concerned to reflect on writing and to
focus on teacher knowledge, confidence and understanding of creative
writing processes. This broad aim was selected because initially we
wanted to explore the individual and collective understanding of how
creative writing might be taught and whether this specific genre of
writing had any particular value in trying to engage with pupils’
motivations for writing more broadly - searching for the ‘possibility space’
that Craft described.

The trainees and teachers who attended the workshops exhibited a

variety of attitudes and responses. Some were regular writers who
grasped every opportunity to practise and extend their craft. Others were
keen to begin and welcomed the advice and guidance from the
professional writer who led the workshop. Yet others sought safety in the
supportive atmosphere of the workshop where their initial efforts could
be applauded and critiqued.

Jim Riordan, a local writer based in Portsmouth and noted for his links
with schools and local writing groups, led the first session. Riordan
talked about writing processes. These included: the need for a regular
space for writing; writing every day; the development of one’s belief in
one’s own stories; the ideas that grow from memories, encounters and
events. Sweet Clarinet, his debut novel for children in 1998, is the story
of a boy growing up in a heavily bombed Portsmouth. Riordan described
to the audience how this had grown from his walking down a particular
street in Southsea on a cool, windy day and the smell of brick dust
hitting his nostrils. This smell recovered a strong memory of being a boy
during the war and from this smell a whole range of other recollections
and ideas emerged, eventually to be shaped into Sweet Clarinet. Whilst

76 English in Education Vo1.40N o . 2 2006

 Kate Domaille and John Edwards

the processes of crafting the story underwent a series of drafts and re-
writes he claimed that the starting process was the idea which was raw,
messy and unshaped initially. Riordan emphasised that a vital process for
writing development was the opportunity to share writing amongst peers,
to receive full, critical feedback.

Writing together
It might be a virtue of the novelty of a new project that we were able to
observe a very collegiate atmosphere in this first writing workshop when
the tempo moved away from listening to an established writer and into a
space where individuals or pairs began to write. Riordan emphasised the
processes he had expounded previously:

write for a specified amount of time

develop your interest and ideas from what you know
share the results and discuss the ways forward.

Once participants began to write, a number of different processes were

observed. The more experienced writers set straight to their task,
unphased by being asked to write on demand. Less experienced writers
showed obvious signs of discomfort. Some removed themselves to areas
outside the room, adopting quite guarded positions over their writing
and nervously giggling that what they were producing was ‘rubbish’ and
unworthy of sharing. All set about producing some writing - perhaps an
indication of obedience rather than willingness. One group overcame
their individual anxieties by joining together to produce a collective
poem. The trainee teachers generally found it easier to settle. This might
well be because it was still early in the PGCE course and they were quite
well initiated in working together in workshops at the university. The
established teachers were much more unsettled at working in a less
structured framework without clear outcomes. Though they were quite
clear that they wanted to learn more about creative writing, they showed
in the workshop that they were more familiar and comfortable with
professional development that had them following instructions than
processes that required reflection or exploration or risk-taking as this
workshop appeared to do. Grainger describes a similar level of
discomfort in her ‘We’rewriters’ project (2005). She suggested that when
teachers were ‘positioned more overtly than usual as learners’ they felt
vulnerable about this role shift in the domain of writing (2005:78). One
of the teachers in our project declared at one stage that she was ‘a crap
writer, but a good teacher’ and was clearly agitated about being
evaluated by a different process to the one she felt secure in.
Interestingly, some of the trainee teachers were far better writers than
their more experienced teacher counterparts. This did reveal a new space
for assessing knowledge where some trainees could be viewed as having
more extensive skill in this one area of English teaching than some of the

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Partnerships for learning: extending knowledge a n d understanding

experienced teachers. When experienced teachers felt they might be

assessed as not being good writers, they indeed told how it made them
feel more vulnerable.

Sharing writing
When Riordan convened the sharing of responses, the willing volunteers
were trainee teachers. Mark was an interesting candidate o n the course, a
highly trained musician and an exceptionally well qualified English
candidate. Mark used the workshop to subvert any notion of assessment
of writing currently operating in school. He wrote horizontally across the
page, veered between clear letters, words and symbols. The writing was
a stream of consciousness, without a clear story or obvious characters. It
stood out for the beauty of the language and the sounds given life by
Mark’s performance of it. The audience were complimentary of the
writing - but they were also perplexed. It didn’t have a clear narrative.
Most of the audience weren’t sure what he was trying to say. But they
were enamoured of his control of sound in the language and his sense of
producing a thought-provoking piece. If assessed via one set of criteria
he might easily have been judged to have shown that he can ‘imagine,
explore and entertain’ but the writing did not conform to other elements
of craft and skill. His handwriting was difficult to read and he refused
constraints of sentences and paragraphs. If assessed by competency
standards, Mark’s writing might well have been judged as in need of
further work. Essentially, Mark’s success as a writer was being received
intuitively and holistically on the basis of the sound of quality rather than
the look of polished finish. As Marshall has argued, when we assess
writing as good it isn’t always easy to define why. It is the reader or
audience who make a holistic judgment about quality. She wrote:

English is about the art of language . . . . the cadence of a

sentence or the rhythm o f a paragraph ...(Marshall, 2004:40)

She goes on to argue that it is a ‘messy business’ and assessing it runs

counter to using rigid assessment frames.

Other entries to the shared experience included a carefully crafted poem

entitled My Passport, showing the writer’s feelings of tension between
how she was officially described and how she felt. The extract below is
the middle stanza where she takes issue with the official description of
her as an assembly of physical features and ethnic markers:

So this is supposed to be me, this is who I am, officially

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 Kate Domaille and John Edwards

But where does it sa.y the rest?

Where does it s q y that actually you don ’t want me to be German?
Where does it sa.y that actually I don’t know Sweden?
Where does it sa-y that actually I am also Chilean?
Where does it sa-y that somelimes I also feel English?
Where does it sa-y that you think I am Turkish, Pakistani, Hindu,
Greek, Spanish, Maori, Mexican.. . .anything but.

The audience were again complementary of the skill demonstrated in

crafting a poem in a short space of time, using recognisable poetic
features, like repetition and drawing attention to interesting details about
this young woman’s particular interest in identity.

The emphasis on collaborative evaluation proved effective in helping

participants to respond to successful pieces of writing offered for review.
But the tension of how such evaluation works when less confident
writers submitted their work for review was also felt. Where writing
wasn’t so S L I ~ ~ ~ S in
S ~content,
L I ~ interest or in craft, the group responded
with a mannerly round of applause. This workshop of teachers together
had not debated criteria for reviewing pieces of writing and consequently
the process foundered when less successful pieces were presented and
the feedback was reduced. The manners of review were such that most
wished to stay within the bounds of complimenting.

The plenary of the workshop debated what value such processes held.
Generally the mood was positive about being told to write and insisting
on putting anxieties to one side in favour of ‘having a go’. Though ‘free
writing’ was thought to be quite difficult to do on demand, it was also
seen as potentially liberating. Clearly, some writers had found the open
forum very productive and had produced high quality pieces in a short
amount of time. Most believed in the peer review process but felt that it
was in need of development. The criteria for judging needed to be
debated and the manners for feedback explored further. Interestingly, the
experienced teachers told how peer review of pupil work is a well-
established process in many schools and pupils are increasingly well-
trained in giving positive and constructive feedback.

This workshop linked with a later workshop in January via a continued

commitment to write. The participants of workshop 1 all agreed to
produce a single piece of writing for review in Workshop 2 . The first
anthology of writing collected samples from the majority of teachers who
had attended the first workshop.

The use of practising writers to lead the workshops allowed us to gain

insights into how writing turns into product, that is, a finished piece that
gains an audience. Teaching of writing in English classrooms has long

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Partnershipsfor learning:extendingknowledge and understanding

referred to the importance of audience as a prerequisite for writing.

Writers in both workshops emphasised the importance of reading and re-
reading at the moment of composition; sharing writing and peer
assessment of writing. Both professional writers talked about the tensions
they experienced between being ‘commissioned to write and writing for
themselves. In both instances, commissioned writing was difficult,
whereas choice and autonomy were seen as necessary for developing an
imaginative piece of writing.

Moving the work to schools

The workshops which were carried out subsequently in two schools

within the partnerships were led by trainee teachers and supported by
mentors. What became evident from the outset was the variety and scope
of writing undertaken, largely in private with the aspiration of the writing
meeting an audience, though it was far from clear who that audience
might be. The school-based writing groups were of mixed age range,
although tended to attract mostly pupils in the lower school, they
generally consisted of about 15-20 participants and ran in an after-school
slot. The workshops were held on a weekly or fortnightly basis and
provided opportunities for pupils to write to a thematic or genre based
challenge or to bring in work of their own, either previously completed
or in progress, perform it to an audience and receive feedback. Pupils
could write quite freely although various inputs were arranged to support
crafting, drafting, evaluating and presenting writing.

Despite earlier concerns expressed by English teachers in the project

about pupils’ lack of extended writing, they all reported some surprise to
learn the following about their pupils:
Some pupils do write extensively beyond school.
They write in quite old-fashioned ways using notebooks and pens.
Girls, in particular, retain diaries, scribblings, musings, thoughts,
reflections.
Writing takes place in very many locations: ‘in bed at night’
(Charlotte), ‘in the car on long journeys’ (Asma) ‘at night before I go
to sleep’, (Henry) ‘I like to write on the beach’ (Hayley).
Many of the pupils have clear preferences for writing forms (stories or
poems) and for writing genres (mysteries, romances, horror).
All sought out audiences for their writing - mostly parents but
sometimes friends and most were content to see the writing as some
way of expressing themselves beyond school.
Some reported a vague memory of writing in primary school - one
Year 8 girl in April 2005 reported that she had not written a creative
piece in an English lesson since Year 6, a fact confirmed by her
English teacher!
The workshops felt very different to school-based learning. In the

80 English in Education Vo1.40 No.2 2006

 Kate Domaille and John Edwards

workshops, the pupils, working together with the teacher and a trainee,
explored ideas (risk-took) and discovered different preferences and
abilities with working in a variety of modes. The abandonment of the
unit frame and the assessment outcomes liberated some of the pupils
from the school-based approaches to writing which are always framed by
clear assessment outcomes. In one Southampton group the teacher noted
that one girl, who was in set three (below average attainment) was
beginning to explore a whole different critical vocabulary as she emerged
as one of the stronger voices in peer evaluation of work. Another girl in
a different context, who had a history as a ‘looked after’ child, used the
workshops to develop a way of expressing painful memories as well as
current joys. Her behaviour issues were what marked her out for
comment in class time but here the fresh atmosphere of the ‘writing club’
gave her a new space to explore her own ideas more safely. By far the
most outstanding achievement was the contributions made by a girl on
the Special Needs Register, who arrived at secondary school without a
recorded National Curriculum level of attainment in reading or writing
and who, after much evasion and stalling, produced a coherent poem for
admission to the anthology. That she attended every session was itself an
achievement but that she eventually found something to say and
represent her was extraordinary, Her work was appraised alongside her
peers and for the first time in her school life she found herself included
in a community of learners.

The trainee teacher running the Southampton project was instrumental in

bringing together the first anthology of the writer’s group in school. What
was unique about the anthology was the fact that it contained examples
of writing from the trainee, the Head of English, and the pupils. The
reluctant pupil writer described above had her work next to the Head of
English in an anthology that was circulated in the school library, via a
Local Education Authority convened event for writing and in the local
library.

(Extracted from a longer piece based on writing using photographs as

stimulus.)

She turned to the photograph. A couple looked back at her

dressed in 1940s overcoats and hats. It was obviously sepia-
tinged black and white with a crease across the bottom where
the image was bleeding out. T h y looked hapky, holding hands
and looking back at the camera, smiling. The man’s shoes shone
as if recently polished. (PGCE Trainee)

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Pafinerships for learning: extending knowledge and understanding

Focus on life not death

n e precious baby
Tiny, innocent, unable to realise the fear linked to birth.
His brother, beautiful yet deadly
Transfusion of the living to the near dead
He wanted, needed yet
Anticipated with uneasiness (Head of English)

When my brother was born. I was

Surprised
Happy
Loving
Ready
Looking.forward
Eager
Shocked
Sad because it was a boy.
Images
First tech?
Warm-hearted
Cheerful
Kind
Joyful
Fun
Great. (Becky, Year 8 - reluctant writer)

The workshops in the Portsmouth partnership took place in a co-

educational comprehensive school with a regular attendance of between
15 and 20 year 7 and 8 pupils. As in the Southampton experience many
of the pupils wrote regularly in their own time and a number produced
copious examples of writing for sharing and comment. These included an
eighty-four page film script produced by two boys in year 7 and a
volume of sonnets written by a girl in year 8. This was the first time that
these had been offered to an audience.

Conclusions
At the end of a year long project it is possible to view some identifiable
outcomes. Trainee teachers and experienced teachers wrote together and
produced anthologies of writing. All teachers had the opportunity to
explore both their own processes of writing and how to develop some
new opportunities for pupil writing in schools. None of the processes
explored in this project are particularly groundbreaking. However, the
current vogue for professional development is goal-oriented and
assessment driven and we wanted to explore ‘possibility spaces’ and
‘learning horizons’ as discussed by Craft and Marshall above.
Trainees were able to explore both their own creative practice and how

a2 English in Education Vo1.40 No.2 2006

 Kate Domaille and John Edwards

they might enhance pupils’ creative writing beyond the confines of a

conventional PGCE programme. Pupils were provided with an
opportunity to practice their creative writing in a collaborative and critical
space, beyond assessment. They were able to see themselves as
producers of writing alongside their teachers and to develop a wider
audience for their writing through the commitment to an anthology and
shared distribution. We believe that the dissemination of their writing
through the schools and more widely through the library service
represented an elevated status for their writing.

Sustainability proved more difficult. Mentors were inevitably drawn by

other school demands and the trainees involved in running the
workshops moved to new placements and, on graduation, to
appointments as newly qualified yeachers, often outside the partnerships.
However, the writing groups have continued within the schools and are
now run by the designs selected by the coordinators. One Head of
English told me that the writing group at her school has become a great
way of filling coursework gaps for some of the pupils who have found it
difficult to work in lessons. This wasn’t part of the original purpose but
an inevitable outcome of teachers trying to combine purposes for work
within and outside of the curriculum.

One initiative which was planned in the original design of the project
was the establishment of a website on which pupils and trainees from
both partnerships could post work at regular intervals and exchange
commentaries. There are national website such as Kids on the Net
(http://kotn.ntu.ac.uk/)that d o this already but the establishment of a
website would d o more to puhlicise the work of pupils at a local level -
again an issue that would work towards improving self-esteem. Our
ongoing work to complete the project is to devote the remaining funding
to achieving this outcome.

We hope that the increased attention paid to creative writing beyond the
curriculum has encouraged trainees, experienced teachers and pupils to
view themselves as creators of texts as well as consumers. In a content-
laden curriculum, opportunities for open-ended work are few. This work
was developed in broad educational terms: supporting teacher and
trainee knowledge and exploring alternative ways of working with pupils
in schools. The work hasn’t claimed a new means of encouraging natural
creativity in pupils. Instead it has argued for preserved space and
exploratory learning, for teachers as well as pupils. We believe the
capacity to explore and experiment with the curriculum is a worthwhile
and a positive feature of any partnership programme. We are grateful that
this opportunity was made possible through the generous funding of the
Esmee Fairbairn Foundation.

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Partnershipsfor learnfng: extending knowledge and understanding

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