This article reports on a collaborative study using an innovative methodology, based on "insiders" who are Steiner practitioners knowledgeable and practised in Steiner philosophy and "outsiders" from UK mainstream early years and primary perspectives. Although the study as a whole focused on assessment and observation used in…

In this project, teachers use mini-speeches, or monologues, as if told by famous scientists from the past, as a springboard to motivate children to think about these scientists as everyday people. The introductory speech describes or introduces the kinds of behaviours, skills, and knowledge the scientists possessed. Talking about the way they…

Historically underpinning principles of the English curriculum framework for children from birth to five years explicitly acknowledged a spiritual dimension to children's uniqueness and well-being. Yet spirituality receives scant reference in the discourse of creative learning and teaching. This paper considers the relationship of spirituality to…

This small scale research project examines opportunities for creative thinking and imagination through den making in a rural private day nursery with its own woodland area on the borders of England and Wales in the UK. The research is underpinned by sociocultural theory and is an ethnographic study of non-participant observations of children aged…

For children with autism, social challenges may be both part of the disability and a barrier to accessing education. This article reports on a project that used drama to address such challenges by drawing on the social skills of non-autistic peers in a special school setting. The article demonstrates how drama's flexibility may be harnessed in…

This article stresses the quality of universality within young people's poetry. The writer uses the poetry mainly written by children of Pakistani origin living in Pitsmoor and Fir Vale in north-east Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, as a stimulus for the creative writing of children of the Mohawk nation in the reservation school of Tyendinaga…

The aims of this article are to explore the links between drawing and playing and to conceptualise drawings as spaces for intellectual play. The empirical research that supports this position is based on an interpretivist study involving 14 children aged four-six in a primary school in England. Over a one-year period, 882 drawings were collected…

This small-scale research examined den-making in three different settings in the UK. The research consisted of non-participant, narrative observations of children aged between 3- and 5-years and early years practitioners involved in supporting them in their play. Content analysis revealed common themes: the impact of the environment on the way…

This paper explores the central place of stories and narratives in action research practices and accounts to argue that it is hard to imagine how we might do or write about action research in a non-storied way. The paper argues that good stories help us to think well and more wisely about ourselves and our practice. An historical example is chosen…

The historical fiction novel straddles the factual and the fictive recreation of past motivations that animate historical events. Through reading a work of historical fiction, Ursula Hegi's novel "Stones from the River," Kent den Heyer and Alexandra Fidyk offer a theoretical consideration of the following questions and their classroom…

Albert Einstein once said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." In order to develop his theories, he had to use his imagination and go beyond the facts generally accepted. He needed time to think and to imagine. Knowledge has a valuable part to play, but the current emphasis in England on end-of-key-stage assessments and…

The national secondary review promises new possibilities for innovation in curriculum design and the learner experience in Key Stage Three. With its emphasis on flexible curriculum frameworks and active pupil learning, this may create new avenues for the promotion of a frequently neglected area of the secondary pupil experience--the creative…

This paper works in dialogue with Arjun Appadurai's paper, "Grassroots globalization and the research imagination" in an attempt to outline some necessary changes in researching education in the multiple contexts of globalisation. The paper provides two narratives as part of this project, which Appadurai calls the…

It is now a matter of routine that schools in England are able to demonstrate the value of their work in terms of "impact" and "outcomes." In the province of imaginative education this is problematic. While Government has sought to create a new relationship between inspection and school self-evaluation, this in effect has…

Joseph Priestley, in his "A Course of Lectures on Oratory and Criticism," developed a psychological theory of style. The "Course" covers three main topics: traditional rhetorical arts of invention, arrangement, and style. Borrowing from the ideas of David Hartley, the association psychologist; Joseph Addison, the aesthetician;…