ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on defining 'curriculum’, the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and the issues with interpretation, exploring the notion of a creative curriculum and elements in constructing a creative curriculum – includes embodying children's voices, creating holistic experiences, and pedagogical approaches underpinning it. It explores the building of the creative curriculum, which should remain statutory but engage and motivate children to keep on learning. There is no doubt a tension between the EYFS as a curriculum and the concept of a 'creative' curriculum. In 2015, Finland embarked on one of most radical education reform programmes ever undertaken by a nation state. Its Finnish Curriculum scrapped traditional 'teaching by subject' in favour of 'teaching by phenomena', a combination of different skills to teach a topic. The creative curriculum may intend for children to imagine and create, master skills, have meaningful experiences, express their thoughts and ideas, solve problems, engage in thinking, and explore diverse ways of knowing, thinking and learning.
