This paper explores the potential role of creative learning in helping to create positive experiences for socially excluded young people. Noting the increased influence of the market into education and the onus engendered in the 'Third Way', which seeks to give socially and economically marginal individuals the opportunity to adapt to changing economic conditions, while neglecting the underlying causes of exclusion, the paper focuses on a group of 14-18 year olds' experience of performance-based training as part of a government-funded Creative Partnerships project in Durham/Sunderland. The paper argues that creative learning cannot provide a solution to the ills of educational disadvantage, but that its untapped potential lies in its ability to provide a "community of practice" in which an individual can take personal ownership of his or her own learning experience in a communal context.