Year one: setting out a plan

The project began in December 2021 with a launch event. Here we met our new colleagues, shared our hopes and expectations of the next three years, and set the creative and collaborative tone of the project. 

Our research questions were: 

• How can schools develop a whole-school culture and credo? 

• In what ways might a school-based teacher research group develop staff understanding of what it means to teach creativity across the curriculum? 

• How might a school’s teacher research group help staff to embed and improve their practices in teaching for creativity? 

• What is the role of school leaders in working with staff and outside agencies to ensure that creativity is embedded in all aspects of school life? 

We worked with 13 different schools across 10 London boroughs – six primaries, five secondaries, a special school and a sixth form. Each school set out their own plan on how they would nurture creativity in their settings. 

Year two: working with industry partners

The mid-project conference at The National Theatre was a key highlight of year two, sharing work completed to date.

In year two we ran bespoke Continuing Professional Development sessions with many incredible expert partners such as the V&A, National Theatre, Jones Knowles Ritchie and A New Direction.

A New Direction published a great resource linked to the work of our project. It is for teachers and schools and explores the value of the teaching for creativity pedagogies in the classroom. A staff training resource can be downloaded below. 

Year three: 

In year three of the teaching for creativity initiative, the schools were progressing from establishing to embedding, with a focus on developing staff understanding, embedding practices and engaging school leaders. Differentiated approaches had been adopted based on each school’s needs, including involving different year groups and subjects, integrating creativity into whole school development plans and forming teacher learning groups dedicated to creativity. 

As we moved through year three, we increasingly focused on everyday creativity, and creativity in all lessons and across subjects. ‘Everyday creativity’ equals creativity every day. Hence the metaphor of the pantry and cooking utensils took shape – our resource bank will be a creativity pantry to draw on. It will be a well-stocked pantry of resources, equipment and ingredients which we’ve developed over the past three years, with the idea that we cannot just let it sit there unused, but make it the central store to nourish teaching and learning. 

We celebrated our collective work at our year three conference in April 2024. 

Following on from our success as one of the eight Creativity Collaboratives in the three-year teaching for creativity research pilot, in July 2024 Arts Council England invited us to lead a new two-year pilot project. The project is exploring whether schools can gain or retain the prestigious Artsmark Award by using teaching for creativity as part of their evidence. 

In response to the Durham Commission and the work of the Creativity Collaboratives, the Arts Council have updated their Artsmark framework to include teaching for creativity as evidence within schools. Our role is to explore how St Marylebone can keep its Platinum Artsmark while helping other schools achieve or retain their own Artsmark Award. We’ll do this by using evidence from teaching in subjects that are often seen as ‘not creative’, alongside a strong commitment to giving every student access to the arts and high-quality arts education.   

Our research question is:

How can the nationally-esteemed Artsmark framework support schools to achieve an Artsmark Award through teaching for creativity? 

This national research project, funded by the Arts Council, will be led by St Marylebone and evaluated by Dr David Parker, a senior Artsmark assessor. This is the only project in the UK exploring this research question.  

Artsmark is Arts Council England’s national schools programme that recognises and accredits schools that embed arts, culture and creativity across the whole curriculum. 

The usual Artsmark process empowers teachers through the CPD they receive from Goldsmiths. However, for this pilot our schools will receive bespoke training and personalised support from the Creativity team at St Marylebone. 

We are supporting seven other schools in Greater London, and are excited for the results in September 2026.  As of October 2025 all schools have submitted their Statement of Commitment and are working towards implementing their action research and harvesting evidence for their Statements of Impact.