5 January 2026
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Training & Services
How can we reimagine a creative education for all?
A conversation on education in its' current form and what else is possible
On the Thursday 12 November 2025, A New Direction held an online masterclass interrogating how we can reimagine a creative education for all. The conversation was not looking at teachers, or the education system, but focussed on how the current education system fails an ever growing group of children who are not in school. The generic school system doesn’t work for them, so how can we find a creative solution? This is the question our three speakers, guided by our host Clare, discussed.
"The education system has forgotten to treat children like children" - Sharon O’Neill
Reflections from host Clare Murphy
We all know that the education system which was designed in the 1700s is no longer fit for purpose in 2025. We know that children and young people are dropping out of mainstream education in their droves. We know that the way we think about education simply doesn’t really grow intelligent healthy humans.
What we didn’t know is how many of us are thinking about this same problem set and fighting hard to bring about the change that we need in the world.
A New Direction’s November masterclass was an absolute POWERHOUSE of a gathering. Our speakers and our listeners made for a cohort of experienced, intelligent, curious and deeply-driven human beings. This crew of people are used to advocating for change and making it happen whenever and wherever they can.
Our three speakers were Errol Comrie, Head teacher and advocate for young people, Sharon O Neill, Director of the Cork Life School, Hannah Joyce creative facilitator, teacher, parent and advocate. Each of our speakers were inspired to work in education due to personal experiences in their lives or their families lives.
All of them want to pay it forward and be in service to making education better.
Cork Life School has a cohort of 45 kids, and is not currently a model that can be replicated, due to the cost of having a ratio of 1:2 teacher to student. But it is a model that can be learned from in terms of agility and flexibility. The ability of teachers at CLS to respond to the needs of their students shows us that organisational agility requires trust in their teachers and practitioners. A change in procedure can be as simple as having a lesson outside, changing the lighting, or having a swing chair to allow the kid to regulate their system before a problem arises.
Hannah Joyce reminded us that the system currently overlooks the humanity of each child. We are physical beings with daily needs. Our current system ignores the needs of a child to move, drink, eat, think and talk, and instead places weight on obedience, repetition and stillness. To sit and listen rather than talk, to stay still rather than move. These inhumane restraints inevitably reshape a child’s capacity to respond to challenge.
Errol brought the word “agency” to the fore. He reminded that many conversations happen about children without ever involving children, we operate by ideas that don’t interact with the population they serve.
Our audience of practitioners were just as frustrated as our speakers by the limits and dangers of the systems of education we have in place. This group has the knowledge, and the tools. What isn’t there is the support from government. There is a policy blindness in terms of the reality of learning. The government returns again and again to attendance rates, exam outcomes. Education as measurable by numbers, rather than a healthy and well-rounded population.
Tapping into the creative genius of the group, we began to share and talk about the importance of nurturing cultures of cooperation and mutual aid, rather than competition and scarcity. We shared the books that have inspired us to be better facilitators and how to have courage when facing toxic systems designed to beat obedience in rather than nurture agency and creativity.
We are living in a time of breaking systems. As they break we have the opportunity to patch repair, or build anew. If we learn from Hannah, Errol and Sharon, as well as all the incredible audience (including Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration, Barbican, Royal Academy of Music, Artis, Croydon Council and many, many more) we know that building anew will be a lot easier with this kind of embodied knowledge in the room.
“[Someone] once told me that every day you have to help the children put down whatever luggage they've walked in with before they can pick anything else up.” - Participant
Top Take-Aways:
Hannah Joyce:
- We need to support the regulation and relational needs of the children in front of us. As parents, teachers, creative practitioners we need to hold this front and central to all we do. Take time to connect when you go into lead a workshop in school, build relationships, be ready to hold the space and support the regulation of children within the group.
- Play is key to a child’s development; it leads to more curiosity and more exploration. It allows us to seek joy in a relationship. For me, this is why the arts are so important in school and why a creative, interactive approach to learning (as seen in the Teaching for Creativity programme) is key to improving our education system.
- Children need joy in their day; school needs to be fun. We need to hear more laughter in classrooms and see smiling faces in corridors. How can we achieve this?
- Dan Hughes model of PACE is something we need to embody more of in what we do: Playfulness, acceptance, curiosity, empathy.
- Stories are so important to the way we make sense of the world; use stories to frame learning - in this way learning will be memorable, children will connect to it.
“When the problem is so big, you will have 2 reactions. 1) be overwhelmed and do nothing. Or 2.) do something within your means. Even the small actions will all build up to change” - Participant
Sharon O’Neill:
- Do we want to teach or do we want to create spaces where learning can happen - because those are two very different things!!! When you shift your mindset to wanting to create a space for learning, you start asking the questions that open the door to change.
ASK - What does this young person need to access learning?
- Young people do not learn from people they do not like or people they do not trust – so everything starts with creating a relationship with a young person that helps them to feel safe, seen, soothed and secure.
ASK - What stories might they be telling themselves about who they are? How can I help them change that narrative?
- If a young person cannot be mentally and emotionally present, they cannot create an event memory to hook their learning to - so we need to start with helping them to press <PAUSE> on the internal video / audio recordings that are keeping them held in the past or afraid of the future.
ASK – How can I help them be in the moment? (HINT: all the other takeaways have the answers … but you do too.)
- Passion is a powerful element of teaching – when the learning practitioner loves their subject, it opens doors in a young person’s mind to the content and to the possibility of learning being fun.
ASK – Where is the fun in all of this? For them … and for ME?
- Think about harmless deviance as an approach – go right up to the edges of the rules, find the soft spot, and push gently. The best way to get a young person out of their head is to get them into their body. Movement is medicine – find ways to bring it in.
ASK – What are the creative ways you can safely make that happen at the edge of the rules? A swinging chair outside the office door to help them regulate before entering? Embodying the characters in the books they are studying to help them remember at exam time? Doing an eight-count shake before / during / at the end of your class?
Errol Comrie:
- A deeply enriching experience – The session felt energising and intellectually stimulating, shaped by the collective passion and expertise of the educators in the room.
- Reconnection with core purpose – Participating as a panellist reaffirmed my commitment to keeping students at the centre of my work and reminded me why I chose to work in education.
- Values and systems must work in harmony – I gained clarity on the balance between a values-led approach rooted in integrity and compassion, and a systems-led approach that ensures structure, consistency, and equity.
- Exceptional leadership matters – The host’s clarity, insight, and ability to simplify complex ideas significantly elevated the quality and impact of the masterclass.
- A renewed sense of motivation – The experience reignited my belief in the transformative power of education and strengthened your dedication to making a meaningful difference, one student at a time.
Resources:
Know Me to Teach Me, Louise Michelle Bomber
Conversations that Matter – Margot Sunderland
The Power of Showing Up – Dan Siegel
“What Happened to You?” - Bruce Perry & Oprah Winfrey
Evey Child Needs a Champion – Rita Pierson
An Unlikely Hero, John Taylor Gatto
Why Schools Don’t Educate, John Taylor Gatto
Student Engagement, No Learning without It, Antony M Perry
Investigating the contributions of active, playful learning to student outcomes
The Relationship Between Student Voice and Student Engagement in Urban High Schools
Know Me to Teach Me, Louise Michelle Bombèr
Children’s Rights Alliance – Ireland
Children’s Rights Alliance – England
A New Direction’s Teaching for Creativity Resources
Other Links shared during the Masterclass:
Light Up Language, Travelling Light Theatre Company
The Forgotten Third, Roy Blatchford
The Ecology of the Imagination in Childhood, Edith Cobb
We Feel, Therefore We Learn, Immordino-Yang, M. H., & Damasio, A
Southbank Centre, Grounded Ecotherapy
Reflections of Year 1, Light Up Language
English indices of deprivation 2025
New England Institute for Teacher Education
Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration
The Centre for Child Mental Health, Conversations That Matter
“We must be the guardians of spaces that allow students to breathe, be curious and to explore” quoted by Hannah Joyce, from Know Me to Teach Me, Louise Michelle Bomber
