On a visit to Hampton School, bestselling author Saci Lloyd voiced her concerns that that creativity is an endangered trait in today’s society. Lloyd, whose works include young-adult novels The Carbon Diaries, Quantum Drop and It’s the End of the World as We Know It, spoke of how important it is for young people to think ‘flexibly’, and to have what she calls a ‘springy’ mind.

“The problem with schools nowadays,” Mrs Lloyd told me, “is that you always have to be right. It has got to the point where, in class, the absolute worst thing you could do is get something wrong. Everyone’s far too scared of making mistakes, and so their creativity is being taught out of them at a very young age.” She went on to talk about how little focus and attention more unorthodox subjects such as art, music and drama are given in comparison to maths and English. According to Lloyd, “creativity is as, if not more, important as literacy.”

Leading a creative writing masterclass at Hampton for boys from 11-17, Lloyd highlighted the ‘startling’ pattern of people who consider themselves creative. “Whenever I visit a school, it’s always the same. I ask the children if they think they are generally creative. The younger ones always eagerly put both hands up, the slightly older ones might raise a finger, and by the time I get to the sixth-formers they all just look at each other, bewildered. I really think it’s a shame.”

There’s a reason why Lloyd feels so strongly about promoting creativity and originality in young people. She says: “I like to think of myself as an ‘ideas writer’ – I really want to make the reader think while they read my books. The world is changing so fast, and there are so many issues, such as climate change and fossil fuels, that the youth of today will eventually be responsible for. It’s crucial that their minds are flexible and free-thinking enough to solve these problems.”

This desire to create ‘outside of the box-thinking’ students is clear in Lloyd’s novels – in her most popular work, the plot always revolves around a current issue, with the hero often searching for a solution to the problem. It is her hope that readers will be inspired to emulate this by getting involved in the real world.

She finished her talk with this message to Britain’s young people: “Be proud of your mistakes. The more you make, the better you’ll be.”

By Joseph Helm, Hampton School