Welcome to Ignite! – promoting creativity in learning.
Welcome to Ignite!
Ignite! was set up in October 2006 to promote creativity in learning. Ignite! works with young people to reveal and develop their capacity for creativity and creative thinking.
Ignite! believes that the characteristics of creative thinkers can be identified and nurtured, and that young people’s innate capacity for invention and play should be developed both within schools and elsewhere.
Each child has a spark in him/her. It is the responsibility of the people and institutions around each child to find what would ignite the spark. - Howard Gardner
Ignite! has grown out of a pilot project at NESTA which aimed to identify and support exceptionally creative young people between the ages of ten and twenty-one. In its first three years Ignite! supported over 120 exceptionally creative young people; devised, tested and evaluated a series of creativity workshops and residential labs; appointed and trained a comprehensive mentoring network; and created a range of materials and resources for teachers and mentors.
We actively seek partners to work with us on further research and activity, that will help to build on the tried and tested experience of Ignite!’s first three years.
It's important to kindle these small fires in children. Children play, and they do it better than any of us. - Juliet Stevenson
The majority of young people now entering the education system will eventually take up jobs that haven’t been invented yet; and most of them will change jobs between 12 and 20 times in their working lives. For them to achieve their full potential in that environment, young people require new skills and attributes - resourcefulness, the ability to make connections, intuition, reflection and a preparedness to take risk.
These are the attributes that Ignite! seeks to develop through its programmes of action research.
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Promoting creativity in learning »