The theme of the first international conference was “Fostering Creativity through Curricular Innovation”. It sought to explore the good practices and challenges teachers and schools encountered in traditional classrooms and explicitly asked the following questions:

• What is a Creative Curriculum?
• What do we mean by a Creative Curriculum?
• How can we develop the creativity of students?
• What has UK independent schools done right?

The conference proposed the need to identify the contextual reality to nurture student creativity and how to support teachers to achieve it on campus.

• To learn from the UK experience in fostering creativity of young people.
• To explore the concept of a creative curriculum and measures to review and improve curriculum design
• To create a dialogue mechanism among educators from UK, China and beyond. 

After the summit, in the same year, the Global Institute of Creative Thinking, London, along with its first key project Creative Lab, was launched.

The conversation offered Chinese educators, and policy-makers first-hand information on creativity education in the U.K. and beyond. The efforts later secured a fully-funded project from the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission to explore the role and value of creativity and leadership in education - the Creative Lab.

A summer training course in Shanghai and a mid-term training course in the UK were co-organized by Shanghai and UK schools, including Bryanston, to discuss a wide range of topics, from the concept of creativity, the role of students, and building teachers capacity.