There are problems with the testing culture and creativity. For one thing, it isn’t easy to test in a conventional sense. I spent years marking English Literature papers which allowed for creative (or “recreative”) answers. Instead of writing an essay about The Merchant of Venice, you would pretend you were Shylock and write about your feelings. It became very clear to me that, though these activities are excellent in the classroom, they do not sit well in a standard examination context. A hot afternoon in the school hall, and your future life depending on it, is not a great place for creativity. More to the point, it’s virtually impossible to assess it in that way.
I think that the testing culture is even more insidious in terms of creativity when it generates a classroom atmosphere that only