Interest in the promotion of creativity and emotional intelligence has been subject
to a recent revival in English state education. At the same time, preoccupations in
educational policy continue to revolve around themes of efficiency and
peformativity. With an emerging focus on the merits of school self-evaluation, the
advancement of practice in understanding and evaluating such things as
pupils’ creative, imaginative and emotional development is likely to
become increasingly necessary. It is in pursuit of this practice that
phenomenological approaches to educational research may offer important
possibilities for the promotion and qualitative evaluation of these areas. Drawing
on the findings of an Ed D study conducted in six primary schools, this article
considers perceptions of imagination in education; dispositions to educational
practice; and how the use of phenomenological research processes might illuminate
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