Monthly Archives: November 2025

Creativity, Learning, Personal Development, Taskmaster, Taskmaster in School, Teaching, Teaching and Learning, Teamwork

Secret Tasks: The Unexpected Key to Obvious Impact

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Last week, I had the pleasure of visiting Southway Primary School, where their Year 6 pupils have been running Taskmaster Club this term.

I was there to learn more about a collaborative project they’re planning with their neighbouring secondary school, TRS, and it’s an idea that’s simple but could well be extremely impactful. Older pupils from TRS will take on leadership roles, running Taskmaster Club sessions for the younger pupils and modelling collaborative teamwork and communication. It’s peer-led, it’s practical, and it’s the kind of initiative that quietly builds confidence in all age groups. I can’t wait to see what happens next and the ripple effect it has across both schools.

But that wasn’t the highlight of the visit.

The Teacher Who Introduced Me to the “Secret Task”

While speaking with a teacher who has been running Taskmaster Club with Post-16 pupils, she shared an adaptation she had made to the format. It was so clever, simple, and bursting with potential that I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

She had introduced The Secret Task.

While all of the teams were working on the same task, she privately assigned individual pupils an extra rule or personal mission to complete during the session. These were designed to shape behaviours, build skills, or push pupils slightly outside their comfort zones – all while keeping the playful spirit of Taskmaster intact.

The sorts of secret tasks she shared included:

  • Make sure your team uses your idea for at least one task today.
  • You must agree with everything everyone says.
  • Do not speak at all during the session today.
  • Sabotage your team’s attempt in some way. If your team win, they lose; if they lose, you gain bonus points; if you get caught, you lose points.

Each one requires a different kind of strategy, awareness, and self-management. And each one develops a different skill.

Why Secret Tasks Work So Well

What struck me most wasn’t just the creativity of the idea—it was the intentionality behind it.

Secret tasks give teachers an opportunity to:

1. Personalise the learning experience

Each pupil can be guided toward a specific behaviour, challenge, or strength. A quieter pupil could have a task encouraging leadership; a dominant pupil could be nudged toward active listening; someone who struggles with teamwork could be steered into building or repairing group dynamics. All while attempting the same task.

2. Strengthen inclusion and adaptive practice

We talk a lot about adaptations, but this is adaptive practice disguised as fun. It gives every pupil a way to participate meaningfully, even if their needs or strengths differ from their peers’. No one is singled out. No one is left out. Everyone plays.

3. Encourage reflection and metacognition

Secret tasks aren’t just playful – they support deeper thinking. When pupils debrief afterwards, they start to notice how behaviours influence the outcome of a team task. They learn to reflect on what worked, what didn’t, and how their own actions shaped the group.

4. Maintain the magic of Taskmaster

Taskmaster thrives on chaos, surprise, and joyful unpredictability. Secret tasks add another layer of mystery that feels perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the format.

An Obvious Impact Through Subtle Means

What I love most is how quietly transformative the secret task can be. It’s a small tweak with the potential for huge impact. When used purposefully, it allows any teacher or facilitator to:

  • build confidence
  • develop communication skills
  • challenge assumptions
  • support social interaction
  • nurture leadership
  • encourage teamwork
  • and gently shift behaviours

…all without breaking the flow of the session or drawing attention to any one pupil’s needs.

This, to me, is inclusive practice at its best: playful, personalised, and powerfully human.

What Secret Tasks Would You Add?

I left Southway feeling inspired – not just by what they’re doing now, but by the possibilities these secret tasks unlock. I’d love to hear other ideas and adaptations people are using in their clubs, classrooms, or youth group sessions.

Sometimes the smallest twist creates the biggest shift. And sometimes, a secret task is the most obvious way to make an impact.

Creativity, Enrichment, Learning, Personal Development, Taskmaster, Taskmaster in School, Teaching, Teaching and Learning, Teamwork

What’s so good about Taskmaster Club? CREATIVITY

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Taskmaster Club is built on unpredictability, play and lateral thinking – exactly the conditions that let creativity breathe. Because the Club’s tasks rarely have a single “right” answer, teams must invent their own routes to success. That open-endedness, combined with a rich mix of music, drama, art and hands-on making, creates repeated, scaffolded chances to practise creative thinking — in other words, creativity isn’t an occasional add-on: it’s the curriculum.

Below we explore how Taskmaster Club develops creativity, what the academic evidence says (with a UK focus), and how these playful tasks nurture the kind of creative thinking young people need today.

Why Taskmaster-style tasks are great for creativity

  1. Open outcomes = generative thinking
    When tasks don’t prescribe a method or final form, teams must ask “what could this be?” not “what must this be?” That shift from replicating a model to possibility thinking is central to creative development: it invites hypothesis, experimentation and risk-taking — the very habits Anna Craft identified as core to creative learning (she coined and championed the idea of possibility thinking). Open University BERA
  2. Constraints actually help creativity
    Paradoxically, tight constraints (time, materials, silly rules) focus creative exploration. Taskmaster tasks often force teams to be inventive within limits — and research across creative pedagogy shows that constraint-driven tasks stimulate fluency and originality by encouraging lateral approaches rather than formulaic solutions. (See examples in creativity collaboratives and school-based action research.) ACE+1
  3. Multimodal practice builds creative flexibility
    Because Taskmaster tasks can require music, drama, visual art, spoken word, or engineered props, students repeatedly practise transferring ideas across modes. This multimodal practice is important: creative expertise grows when learners can move ideas between media, testing which forms best express a concept. The national Creativity Collaboratives and university-school partnerships emphasise this cross-disciplinary approach. Durham Commission on Creativity and Education | Arts Council England
  4. Collaborative creativity is richer than solo creativity
    Teams bring different perspectives and skills; this collision of ideas leads to novel combinations. UK scholars working on creative classroom practice note that well-structured collaboration helps students -externalise ideas, receive immediate feedback, and iterate – turning initial sparks into refined creative products. Professor Teresa Cremin’s work on creative pedagogy emphasises the value of teacher-facilitated but learner-led creative activity, where peer interaction and teacher support combine to sustain risk and exploration.
  5. Low-stakes play creates the behavioural safety to be bold
    Taskmaster Club’s playful framing reduces fear of failure. When “failure” is comical or temporary, learners are more likely to take original risks – which is where real creativity often happens. Research from school collaboratives shows that embedding creative tasks as part of a supportive school culture increases children’s willingness to experiment. University of Exeter News+1

Sir Ken Robinson: Creativity as a Human Right

No discussion of creativity in education is complete without Sir Ken Robinson, whose work transformed how teachers, schools and policymakers think about human potential. Robinson famously argued that “creativity is as important as literacy” — not as a slogan, but as a recognition that imagination and expression deserve the same value as traditional academic skills.

He also emphasised that creativity is not confined to the arts: it is a mode of thinking that cuts across every discipline, powered by curiosity, divergent thinking and the willingness to try something new. Crucially, Robinson championed learning environments where experimentation, improvisation and playful failure are embraced rather than avoided.

Taskmaster Club embodies these principles beautifully. Its open-ended challenges, humorous framing, and celebration of unconventional approaches create exactly the conditions Robinson believed young people need to develop their creative capacities.

What the UK evidence tells us (short takeaways)

  • Possibility thinking matters. Anna Craft’s research established that the move from “what is” to “what might be” is a repeatable, teachable mode of thinking – precisely what Taskmaster-style tasks provoke. BERA
  • Creative pedagogy is most effective when it’s supported, structured and inclusive. Projects like the Creativity Collaboratives and university-school partnerships show that creative teaching yields deeper understanding and longer-term skill development when teachers scaffold opportunities and assessment recognises process as well as product. ACE+1
  • Teacher and peer support amplifies creativity. Teresa Cremin and colleagues emphasise that teachers who model risk, reflect openly, and give careful feedback help students sustain creative efforts beyond momentary sparks. Open University Profiles+1
  • Creativity connects to broader futures skills. National reports and interdisciplinary research (including engineering and design education) emphasise that creative problem-solving is essential for future workplaces — and school-based creative projects are a key route to develop it. Royal Academy of Engineering+1

How Taskmaster Club specifically nurtures those ingredients

  • Regular, varied practice: Weekly sessions give repeated opportunities to ideate, prototype and reflect — crucial cycles described in creativity research.
  • Cross-disciplinary prompts: A single challenge might require story, sound, visuals and a practical build — mirroring real-world creative problems that demand transferable skills.
  • Peer feedback and reflection: Debriefing after challenges turns fun into learning: what worked, what surprised us, what would we try differently next time? That reflective loop is essential for creative improvement.
  • Design for inclusivity: Rotating roles (idea generator, maker, presenter) and mixed-ability teams let different strengths surface; university-school projects show inclusive design increases all pupils’ creative confidence. Birmingham City University+1

Practical tips to amplify creativity in your Club

  1. Value the idea, not just the result. Highlight smart failures and surprising attempts in your feedback.
  2. Introduce micro-constraints. Short time limits or limited materials often spur greater invention than total freedom.
  3. Rotate media. Running a task that specifically requires music or drama helps pupils practise transferring ideas.
  4. Make reflection explicit. Use team reflection time after tasks: what’s one idea we’d keep, one we’d drop, one we’d try differently?
  5. Share and celebrate process. Put up process photos/sketches in school spaces – creativity sees greater uptake when its process is visible.

Final thought

Creativity isn’t a mysterious trait you either have or don’t — it’s cultivated through repeated, scaffolded practice, risk-friendly environments, multimodal tasks and supportive collaboration. Taskmaster Club offers a compact, joyful ecosystem where all of those elements meet. It’s not just entertaining: it’s a practical engine for building future-ready creative thinkers.

Further reading & resources

  • Anna Craft — background and the idea of possibility thinking. BERA
  • Teresa Cremin — creativity, teacher practice and peer-supported creative learning. Open University Profiles+1
  • Creativity Collaboratives / Arts Council England — school–university partnerships embedding creative pedagogy. ACE+1
  • Royal Academy of Engineering — on creativity and engineering education (practical, interdisciplinary creativity). Royal Academy of Engineering

Taskmaster Club materials:

Further posts in the ‘What’s So Good About Taskmaster Club series:

Personal Development, Taskmaster, Taskmaster in School, Teaching and Learning, Teamwork

What’s So Good About Taskmaster Club? TEAMWORK

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Teamwork: A Foundation for School & Work Success

In the first post of our “What’s So Good About Taskmaster Club?” series, I want to highlight perhaps the most powerful benefit: teamwork.

Why Teamwork Matters in Taskmaster Club

At its heart, Taskmaster Club is built on collaborative challenges. Participants tackle creative, often quirky tasks in teams, learning not only to be imaginative, but also to work together strategically. Here’s how this fosters teamwork:

  1. Shared Goals & Collective Problem-Solving
    • By working in teams, students must negotiate who does what, combine strengths, and decide together how best to tackle a task.
    • This shared problem-solving builds trust, responsibility, and a sense of shared ownership of both success and setbacks.
  2. Communication & Feedback Loops
    • Team members learn to articulate ideas clearly, listen actively, and respond to each other’s suggestions — especially when time or resources are limited.
    • They also learn to give and receive feedback, which fosters openness and mutual respect.
  3. Accountability & Role-Distribution
    • Each person needs to contribute; in Taskmaster challenges, one teammate’s bottleneck can slow the whole group. That means students learn responsibility, and how their part fits into the bigger picture.
    • Roles emerge (leader, doer, thinker, encourager) — and shifting roles helps build adaptability.
  4. Resilience Through Collaboration
    • When things go wrong (and they often do), teammates support each other, adjust strategies, or pivot together. Failure becomes a learning moment, not just an endpoint.

The Real-World & Academic Payoffs of Teamwork

Developing strong teamwork skills isn’t just “nice to have” – it’s a critical life skill, backed by academic research and essential in modern work environments.

  • Rachael Carden, Sarah Cork, and Liz Marks carried out research at the University of Brighton on inclusive collaboration. They emphasise designing group assessments so that process (how a team works) matters as much as the final outcome — reinforcing resilience, belonging, and shared agency. Brighton Research
  • Connie Pritchard, Zoe Prytherch, and Nigel Francis from Cardiff University co-authored a recent study “Making teamwork work: enhancing teamwork and assessment in higher education”. They note that despite the challenges, teamwork is one of the most sought-after graduate skills, but group-based assessments often fail unless careful structures are in place. Orca
  • Lucy Chilvers, in a UK peer-learning context, wrote about a “peer-to-peer model” where collaboration is inclusive, respectful, developmental, and accountable. Journal of Peer Learning
  • Claire Dickerson and Joy Jarvis, among others, studied staff-student collaboration in higher education in the UK and found that students working with academics “identified learning … in relation to employability skills … and … their perceptions of themselves as learners”. researchprofiles.herts.ac.uk
  • According to an educational study, teamwork skills are “integral to success in today’s professional world”, and working in groups helps students build collaboration, motivation, and persistence. ERIC
  • Cooperative learning (i.e., structured group work) has been shown to boost academic performance, because the shared knowledge and peer explanations deepen understanding. Pepper Pot+1
  • Teamwork also cultivates social and emotional intelligence — empathy, conflict resolution, and listening — which are foundational for both school and workplace relationships. goldstareducation.com+1
  • Research in higher education shows that collaboration helps students adapt to “multidisciplinary groups … improving their motivation, persistence, and professional skills.” ERIC
  • On a more systemic level, one study found that “collaborative knowledge building” via cooperative learning is increasingly favoured over traditional teacher-centred approaches to prepare students for workforce realities. uijrt.com

In short: teamwork isn’t a bonus skill — it’s an academic accelerator.

And in educational settings, children who engage in strategic reciprocity – cooperating in their peer social networks – tend to perform better academically. arXiv

Why Teamwork in Taskmaster Club Gives Unique Value

Putting all this together, Taskmaster Club offers something special:

  • Low-stakes experimentation: The playful, creative format means students can try out teamwork and an array of approaches to tasks without the heavy pressure of graded assignments.
  • Reflective learning: After each task, teams can reflect on what worked, what didn’t, and how to improve – building a growth mindset.
  • Real collaboration: Unlike more “artificial” school group work, tasks in Taskmaster Club are unpredictable and require genuine collaboration, creativity, and compromise.
  • Transferable skills: The teamwork habits developed (communication, accountability, adaptability) map directly onto both academic group projects and professional teams.

Why This Matters for Schools and Employers

  • For Schools: Taskmaster Club helps embed collaborative learning into school culture, supporting students’ academic and social development in an engaging, fun way.
  • For Employers: Students who learn to work in creative teams – and who understand how to navigate uncertainty, delegate, and adapt – are more prepared for modern, agile workplaces.

Want to Learn More?