Journal of Education & Social Policy Vol. 5, No. 3, September 2018 doi:10.30845/jesp.v5n3p4 28 Creative and Innovative Experience in Vocational Education & Training Rocío Pérez Solís, PhD. Las Palmas of Gran Canary University Education Department Spain Abstract This paper discusses a project on the use of Theatre in Education with a group of the Superior Training Cycle Preschool Education of Vocational Education and Training, in a rural community, in the Canary Islands. Most define Theatre in Education as a general term that includes all the interactive theatre practices that help to the educational process. Some of these processes include developing original scripts, using the performance of a play as a springboard for interacting with an audience and discussing important topics or themes, or theatre activities used to support classroom curriculum. Our process helped students to build social and communicative skills, to improve students’ self-esteem as well as their confidence in their academic abilities. Theatre in Education is shown to be an effective pedagogical tool. Keywords: Theatre in education, applied theatre, creativity, innovative experience, artist-as-trainer. 1. Introduction This study analyses an educational practice which provides an adequate model for both creative learning and innovative teaching. The project aims to provide a better understanding of how innovation and creativity are applied in educational practice at VET level. It analyses an educative experience on the use of Theatre in Education (TIE) and the role of creativity and innovation in Superior Training Cycle for Preschool Education. This experience is part of the Education Theatre Program (ETP) project supported by the city Town Hall of Agüimes, a rural community on the Canary Islands, which I have been leading for twelve years. The ETP promotes creativity and innovation in Education and Training through the implementation of applied theatre practices, both at primary and secondary level. All these practices need time and space out of the scheduled school to engage in more creative and innovative activities, and a major factor for success is the motivation of the teachers, tutors and other staff involved in setting up the activity, which should also translate into motivation of pupils and students. The educational actors involved in these projects see creativity as an element arising from everyday life and value its spill-over effects on learning. Performing arts such as theatre, dance, circus arts, opera and others recently created, such as performance, define sociocultural and artistic manifestations that are distinguished by an inherent unique communicative process and for the fact that they materialise on stage through synthesis and integration of other artistic expressions which may range from literary genres to visual arts. The sense of theatre, as a distinguishing element of the scenic fact, presents multiple forms. In this way, we can find it in a popular dance, in a cloak and sword drama and in the new proposals on stage. We must not forget other traditional expressions that currently take place in countless communities, like popular fairs, where, implicitly or explicitly, typical resources of drama are used. In that sense Harvie & Rebellato (cited by Nicholson 2009) consider: The theatre is everywhere, from entertainment districts to the fringes, from rituals of government to the ceremony of the courtroom, from the spectacle of the sporting arena to the theatre of war. Across these many forms stretches a theatrical continuum through which cultures both assert and question themselves. Theatre has been around for thousands of years, and the ways we study it have change decisively. It´s no longer enough to limit our attention to the canon of Western dramatic literature. Theatre has taken its place within a broad spectrum of performance, connecting it with the wider forces of ritual and revolt that thread through so many spheres of human culture.