In the context of a school system based on strong central regulation of school performance, and thus on tightly specified goals for teaching and learning, Creative Partnerships (CP) - a large-scale England-wide project - is an innovation. Its goals are to support the development of 'creative' teaching and learning and thus to produce whole school change. CP targets schools in 'deprived' areas of England deemed and funds 'creative practitioners' who work with teachers in these schools to design projects and programmes different in pedagogy and focus from the offerings of the conventional curriculum. The majority of practitioners are drawn from the arts field, but CP regional staff have worked to include 'creatives' (the CP term) from other fields such as engineering and the sciences.This paper stems from our CP-funded research project on 'Creative School Change'. The project asks how schools have taken up the 'cultural offer'; how they understand and operationalise the notion of 'creative teaching and learning' and what they mean by, and attempt to bring into being as, whole school change (Thomson 2007). The project thus aims to contribute to understandings of the ways in which policy is mobilized and enacted (Ball, 1990; Taylor, Rivzi, Lingard, & Henry, 1997) as well as to the growing knowledge base on scaleable school reform (e.g. Datnow, Hubbard, & Mehan, 2002; Hargreaves & Goodson, 2006). We also draw on our previous work on 'the cultural turn' where we have raised questions about creativity as a public policy 'solution', and the positioning of CP within the wider policy context (e.g. Buckingham & Jones, 2001; Hall & Thomson, 2005; 2007 forthcoming; Jones, 2001; Thomson, Hall, & Russell, 2006). It may be possible in this context to understand CP, and more generally the new prominence of 'creativity' in policy discourse, as a reflection of a broadly neo-liberal interest in learning transformation that emphasises such economically-valued qualities as risk-taking, innovation, team-work and communicative capacity; and that revisits the educational practices of an earlier 'progressive' period, in order to draw from them - in translated form - material that is relevant to a new educational programme. In this sense, the paper connects to the interests of writers such as Virno (1996) in the relationhip between 'cognitive capitalism' and radically-motivated cultural and intellectual practice.This paper is based on interviews with CP leaders and managers at regional and national level, on CP documentary material, and on interviews with head-teachers and creative practitioners. It explores the discourses, rhetorical strategies and managerial choices that attend CP, focusing on such questions as* as a new and apparently heterodox project, in what terms is CP legitmated at national, at local and at school level?* discursively, how is a relationship established between CP and earler, 'creatively'-orientated projects of school reform? * at both a discursive and an operational, school-based level, how is CP placed in relation to other aspects of government education policy?See above See aboveBall, S. (1990). Politics and policy making in education: Explorations In policy sociology. London: Routledge. Buckingham, D., & Jones, K. (2001). New Labour's cultural turn: some tensions in contemporary educational and cultural policy. Journal of Education Policy, 16(1), 1-14. Datnow, A., Hubbard, L., & Mehan, H. (2002). Extending educational reform: From one school to many. London: Routledge Falmer.. Hall, C., & Thomson, P. (2005). Creative tensions. English in Education, 39(3), 5-18. Hall, C., & Thomson, P. (in press, 2007). Creative Partnerships? Cultural policy and the creative arts in one primary school. British Educational Research Journal. Hargreaves, A., & Goodson, I. (2006). Educational change over time? The sustainability and nonsustainability of three decades of secondary school change and continuity. Educational Administration Quarterly, 42(1), 3-41. Jones, K. (2001). Travelling policy/local spaces: Culture, creativity and interference. Education and Social Justice, 3(3), 2-9. Taylor, S., Rivzi, F., Lingard, B., & Henry, M. (1997). Educational policy and the politics of change. London: Routledge. Thomson, P. (in press, 2007). Whole school change. A reading of the literatures. London: Creative Partnerships, The Arts Council England. Thomson, P., Hall, C., & Russell, L. (2006). An arts project failed, censored or...? A critical incident approach to artist-school partnerships. Changing English, 13(1), 29-44. Virno, P. (1996) 'Do you remember counter-revolution?' in M. Hardt and P. Virno (ed.) Radical Political Thought in Italy