Creative teaching is an art form - aesthetic, intuitive and expressive. The recent proliferation of new educational policies and the related increase in tensions and dilemmas facing schools, combined with the growing demand for a wider range of skills and knowledge among children mean that there is an even greater need for creative teaching than before the National Curriculum. This book addresses this need by: exploring the features of creative teaching with a focus on the day to day practice of primary teachers; showing how teachers use emotion, create atmosphere and stimulate imagination to enhance their teaching; examining the ways in which teachers have managed the National Curriculum and developed a new professional discourse in response to government pressures; This book is a sequel to Creative Teachers in Primary Schools (Open University Press 1995) and builds upon this work to provide new insights into the art of teaching.

Author Biography

Peter Woods taught for eleven years in primary and secondary schools. He went to the Open University in 1971, where for a number of years he was Director of the Centre for Sociology and Social Research in the School of Education. He is currently Professor of Education. He has researched and written extensively in the area of teacher and pupil interaction. His previous books include The Divided School, Sociology and the School and Inside Schools (all Routledge); Teacher Skills and Strategies, The Happiest Days? and Critical Events in Teaching and Learning (all Falmer Press); and Creative Teachers in Primary Schools (Open University Press). Bob Jeffrey is Project Officer at the Centre for Sociology and Social Research in the School of Education at the Open University. Prior to this post he worked as an Urban Studies Education Worker for two years in London where he had been a primary classroom teacher for over twenty years. He has a MA (Ed) in Education Management and is working on a PhD concerned with the intensification of primary teachers' work. He and Peter Woods are currently investigating the effects of Ofsted inspections on primary teachers and their work.