School reform in Sweden reflects international congruencies and two significant policy discourses figure prominently. One that emphasises how, in order to thrive in the new global economy, we must be creative in education and do more than just absorb and feedback information. One that emphasises an increased need for performance-based assessment as a major strategy, particular after Sweden's disappointing performances in recent international evaluations. There are tensions between these creativity and performativity discourses. Furthermore, although traditional ways of teaching and learning in schools are expressed to have been changed and widened in the creativity discourse through the introduction of extended conceptions of teaching and learning that prioritise creativity, this is not a description of material conditions and outcomes but only of ideas. Our presentation uses ethnographic research on the lives, commitments and careers of teachers and school children in today's schools working with/in the policy tensions picked up above in order to say something about how lives are lived by teachers and students in the spaces between the 'new discourses' in everyday schools and practices.