PLAN

Developing your Creative Action

Bullet points

Consider the partnerships you and others in your school already have and new partnerships you would like to develop
Establish working roles, mechanisms, relationships and desired outcomes
Develop your Creative Action

Introduction

This module is about considering your Creative Action – what you will do in the classroom to support creativity – and how partnership working can help with this.

It is not compulsory to have a partner in creative action research, but within Penryn Creativity Collaborative we found that bringing in expertise in both creativity and research considerably enriches the process as it underlines real world learning and underpins a dialogic understanding of creativity. If you have more hours to carry out this action research you are more likely to have the capacity to include a partner to design your Creative Action together. Activity 1 will help you prepare for this: it is about exploring your existing school partnerships relevant to your topic, and, if necessary, locating others with whom you can carry out your research.

If you have fewer hours, it is very likely that you will develop your Creative Action without a partner: Skip directly to Activity 2

Activity 1: Mapping and establishing your partnerships

This is about discovering what relevant partnerships you and others in your school already have, and deciding whether these can provide the support and expertise that you need for your action research, and seeking new partners where necessary. In either scenario, it is important that you establish clear understandings of working roles, mechanisms, relationships and desired outcomes. You can then design your Creative Action together. Think about what they can bring to your creativity research focus in terms of skills and expertise, what benefits they might gain from taking part, and whether they have the capacity to join your project.

First, have a look at the Penryn Creative Collaborative action research reports for examples of different kinds of projects carried out with partners in action research initiatives, including:

Set up a STEAM challenge for students
Share understanding of real-world creative learning with teachers to inform Media assignments
Exampling the scientific creative process at work within the creative industries
Delivering staff CPD focused on facilitating creative, immersive writing

Examples of partners from PCC include: Allen and Heath (world-leading British music mixer company); Pendennis Shipyard (one of world’s leading refit/custom build superyacht facilities); Leach Pottery (local pottery housing museum, exhibitions, pottery education and potters studios); Writers Block (writing centre for Cornwall) (Reynolds, 2025)

Now, download the research journal Creative Action Partners Template and complete the top 4 boxes. This will help you map what partnerships with other schools you can include; what partnerships you have with cultural and industry partners; what research expertise/partners you might have available to you.

Talk to colleagues in your school and wider Multi Academy Trust (if appropriate) or schools community to find out what partnerships already exist that you might build on

Next consider whether working with existing partners will help you to investigate your research question or whether you need new, different partners. Remember you may have more than one partner, e.g. partners who bring creative facilitation expertise, partners who bring research expertise. Add additional partners you would like to find to your template.
Decide which partners you want to work with and approach them. Think about the following questions with your partner/s; make notes on these in your Creative Action Partners Template:
If you’re working with professionals external to your school, it’s good practice to formally contract their time and to set up an agreement which details how you will or won’t share data. Most schools will have templates for establishing these kinds of working relationships so talk to administrative/managerial colleagues about setting these up. You might also want to make a data management agreement with partners – see Module 7 for further information. Add any learning points to your research journal Creative Action Partners Template document.

Activity 2: Sarah input re planning Creative Action

Note we could use sciarts.co.uk website here

FAQs Building your partnerships

What if I don’t have the resource to fund a partner?

If you’re doing your action research on very little resource and time, you may decide that it’s enough for your partner to be a colleague within your school who is happy to act as a sounding board, or share their expertise in creative teaching with you to learn from and experiment with in your research.

Developing your creative action