This playbook is for school leaders who want to build their staff's capacity to teach creative thinking across the school.

Grounded in research and real-world experience, the authors present a framework of five key creative habits: inquisitiveness, persistence, collaboration, discipline, and imagination. Practical tools and resources, such as reflection prompts and planning templates, equip leaders to implement these habits within their schools.

The book's emphasis on fostering a collaborative professional learning community recognises that continuous learning is key to sustained growth in creative thinking.

The book contains lots of ideas for leaders to do activities together in order to develop creative leadership skills. The book is based on research and has been thoughtfully written.

It's a great resource for anyone who sees creative thinking as a core purpose of education, and empowers leaders to cultivate creativity within their schools, preparing students to thrive in an increasingly complex world.

It's a thought provoking book, and an interesting read.

What the playbook covers

The framework is the Centre for Real-World Learning's Five Creative Habits model: learners who are inquisitive, persistent, collaborative, disciplined and imaginative. The publisher says the book draws on research and practice from hundreds of schools worldwide and an in-depth study of fifty schools in England, and offers resources, planning tools and examples in four areas:

  • leadership
  • staff development
  • teaching and assessment
  • working with external partners

A companion website carries further materials and case studies. It was published to coincide with the first PISA results on creative thinking (PISA 2022).

Who it is for

Headteachers, senior leaders and curriculum leads planning creative thinking as a whole-school priority rather than a one-off project, and anyone leading a creativity programme with arts or cultural partners. It is a leadership and staff-development book rather than a bank of classroom activities. Bill Lucas and Ellen Spencer also co-wrote Teaching Creative Thinking.

About the book

  • Authors: Bill Lucas (Director of the Centre for Real-World Learning, University of Winchester, and co-chair of the PISA 2022 creative thinking test), Ellen Spencer (Senior Researcher at the Centre), Louise Stoll (Professor of Professional Learning, UCL Institute of Education), and Di Fisher-Naylor, Sian James, Nia Richards and Katy Milne of Creativity, Culture and Education and the Arts Council of Wales programme (publisher biographies).
  • Publisher: Crown House Publishing. June 2023, 164 pages.
  • ISBN: 9781785836848.

Source: Crown House Publishing listing, checked 13 October 2026.