Responding to a cry in the wilderness: teachers’ perceptions of teaching the Apprentice of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and its impact on the signature pedagogies of English

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper reports the findings from a small-scale study conducted over the first two years of a novel post-16 qualification, the Apprentice of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (AFA). It foregrounds the voices of English teachers teaching the AFA, to explore whether and how the AFA contributes to developing subject English’s ‘signature pedagogies’ (p. 3), promoting teacher agency, creativity and dialogue. Research was conducted through semi-structured interviews with five teachers across four schools over two years, analysed through a hermeneutic framing. Findings suggest that the participants perceived that teaching the qualification had a positive impact on their professional agency, enhanced their relationships with students, and resulted in greater job satisfaction. In a policy context where secondary English teaching in England is increasingly restricted, threatening both the signature pedagogies and teacher supply, the paper calls for larger-scale longitudinal research into initiatives such as the AFA and the affordances they offer.