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Making learning relevant involves many aspects of teaching such as attention to levels of maturity, individual inclinations, emotional, physical, aesthetic and cognitive activity and group dynamics. However, making learning relevant is not only a teacher led activity, for learners make activities relevant by the identification of connections with learning activities from their experience or their imagination. They make learning meaningful. That learners are engaged in these processes of identification of the self with knowledge and learning processes is well documented in the literature of child development and learning theory, and teachers base much of their practice on this knowledge. However, where it is celebrated by teachers, allowed time, given respect and valued, a climate for nurturing learner creativity is established. This empirical research project identified primary school learners' understanding of creative learning and the meaningfulness or value attached to the experiences were seen through focusing on the quality of their personal relationship to creative learning, the development of a learning identity and their identity status as pedagogic participants.

In this article, we explore distinctions between creative practice and a practice which fosters creativity, drawing on case study data from an English nursery and a first school. We suggest that, in practice, these distinctions are very blurred.