Towards a London-wide strategy for creative and cultural education

London Arts Board

Commissioned by London Education Arts Partnership in collaboration with the London Arts Board

All Our Futures: Making it Happen

26th November 1999Conway Hall, London WC1

The conference report

BOOKING FORM

FOR THE FOLLOW-UP

CONFERENCE,

ARTS ED 2000

ON BACK COVER

Written and collated by Richard Ings

all our futures: making it happenA conference report commissioned by London Education Arts Partnership incollaboration with the London Arts Board:

To access the text of the NACCCE report, All Our Futures: either* visit the DfEE website at www.dfee.gov.uk or contact DfEE Publications, PO Box 5050, Sudbury, Suffolk CO10 6ZQ

This report is an attempt to capture the main issues raised at the conference by the key speakers, the thoughts and queries made inresponse by conference delegates, and the detailed deliberations of theafternoon seminar discussions.Wherever pertinent and useful, what wasactually said - and who said it - is directly quoted. Short of publishing the entireproceedings, however, it has not been feasible to cover every point made over along and very talkative day, so the report tries both to paraphrase individualcontributions and to sum up the general thrust of the arguments.We believethat this account reflects what was said and agreed at the time - and we hopethat it may contribute its own impetus to making it happen.

Conference creditsCo-ordinated by the London Arts Board and the London Education Arts Partnership with theco-operation of the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education

Chair: Catherine Graham-Harrison - LAB Board Member

Keynote address:Professor Ken Robinson - Chair, National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education (NACCCE)

Other speakers and panel contributors:Felicity Allen - Head of Education, Hayward GalleryDame Tamsyn Imison - Headteacher, Hampstead School and member of NACCCEMathilda Joubert - Research Officer, NACCCEKate Kelly - Arts Education Officer, IslingtonLesley Mansbridge - Headteacher, Haggerston SchoolProfessor Lola Young - Cultural Studies Department, Middlesex University

Conference delegates are listed in on the inside back coverRecordings of the presentations and contributions from the floor were made by Overtones

1

Making it happen was both the title and thespirit of the conference jointly organised bythe London Arts Board (LAB) and LondonEducation Arts Partnership (LEAP) and held on Friday, 26th November 1999 at the Conway Hall, London.

As a place where such issues as theabolition of slavery, women’s rights and seculareducation for all were once championed,Conway Hall was a fitting venue for exploringand testing the radical vision of All OurFutures, the publication at the heart of theday’s debate.This substantial report on‘Creativity, Culture and Education’ wasproduced by the National Advisory Committeeon Creative and Cultural Education(NACCCE), under the chairmanship ofProfessor Ken Robinson, for the Departmentof Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and theDepartment for Education and Employment(DfEE).As Ken himself remarked, that labourwas both a return to old battlegrounds and thefirst step on a new and exciting journey intothe new millennium.

Those listening to and often laughing withKen Robinson, as he toured us through themain sights and sounds of the NACCCEreport in the opening session, included

teachers, artists, funders, arts educationspecialists, managers and local authorityrepresentatives from across the capital.Otherwise known as the converted. Even ifthere were those amongst us who had not(yet) actually read the report from cover tocover, we were all on message. Unlike, perhaps,the Government, whose ministers hadcommissioned it. Or, equally disturbing, allthose people in the arts and education sectorswho had not yet had sight of it. Or the press,which had by and large overlooked it.

‘There is nothing so powerful,’ Kenreminded us,‘as an idea whose time has come.’Making it happen, however, demandscommitment from a far wider group than thehardworking NACCCE committee and itsdedicated researchers.Those arts educationactivists and proselytisers turning up aroundthe country to conferences like this one -there were five others being held in that sameweek, with more behind and more to come -have a vital role to play in disseminating thereport and building on its implications. Inparticular, they need to consider how to keepthe report alive as a process - rather than asyet another rather weighty tome gatheringproverbial dust.

making it happen‘In the debate which led to the development of state-wide education in thenineteenth century, there was a serious discussion in the House of Commons aboutwhether or not it would be possible to introduce a programme of universal literacyin Great Britain. A number of parliamentarians stood up and said that it could notbe done - that country children and street urchins were incapable of learning to readand write - and, even if they were to do it, that it would lead to social revolution.Which, of course, it did. (laughter) They were quite right.

We are now at a similar point.We are saying that we need to go beyond literacyand numeracy to develop the extraordinary capacities that everyone has. For us,creativity and culture are ciphers for that broader progress.We stand here now withpeople saying that it can’t be done, and what we are saying back is: it has to be done.’

Ken Robinson, addressing the conference

There isnothing sopowerful as an idea whose timehas come.

2

all our futures‘There is something that holistic doctors refer to as the ‘septic focus’ - anunpleasant phrase, admittedly, but a useful one, I think.The idea is: if you go to adoctor with a bad back, the doctor will examine your back; if you have a sorekidney, you’ll be sent to a kidney specialist.What a holistic doctor does is look atyour body and your lifestyle as a whole, and ask: what might be causing this?Because where the symptom occurs may not be where the problem originates.What tends to happen in our schools is very similar.We need to raise standards of literacy, so we’ll drop everything else and do nothing but literacy.’

Ken Robinson

Whether questioning the efficacy of focusingon literacy to the exclusion of all else orchallenging the conventional division of 14 yearolds into scientists and artists, Ken Robinsoncame back to this notion: that these are allsystemic issues, which affect the whole ofeducation. Creative and cultural developmentextends through and beyond the schoolcurriculum. It’s as much about the sciences andhumanities and new technology as it is aboutthe arts.And as much about learning asteaching. It deals with the whole person andthe whole life.

Ken Robinson’s metaphor of the sick bodyseems apt enough for our education system,given the limitations of the NationalCurriculum and of more recent, equallymechanistic interventions, such as the literacyand numeracy strategies, to address the widerneeds of our young people, and - especially - toprepare them for a new kind of world:

‘The state education system is embeddedback in the Industrial Revolution, in theneeds and demands of a manufacturingeconomy where 80 per cent of the workforcewas expected to labour with their hands andonly 20 per cent with their brains. That’s whywe had grammar schools and secondarymoderns, why we had selection at 11, why theuniversity system works in the way it does.’

The assumption that only a small number ofpeople will make their living by the power oftheir intellect must now, Ken argued, be turnedentirely on its head. In the future, thanks largely

to the accelerating development of newtechnologies, most work will be in theknowledge-based industries.And the future hasalready begun:

‘The idea that we just have to raisestandards and all will be well is just not true.The thinking seems to be that if everybodycan get A-levels and degrees it’ll all be OK. Itwon’t be, because academic qualifications area form of currency - and A-levels and the restare just not worth what they once were.Where two Bs used to be enough to secure agood place at university, the standardrequirement is now four As at A-level. This‘academic inflation’ extends even to PhDs -you can apparently get ‘good’ ones - and thenwhere does it all end? Nobel prizes?’

For Ken and the other architects of theNACCCE report, the doubt is not about raisingstandards but what we mean by ‘standards’.Employers are looking for well-rounded people- academic qualifications have only ever beenpart of what people have:

‘The truth is that if all human intelligenceconsisted of is the ability for academicachievement, most of human culture wouldnever have happened: music, art, architecture,poetry, love, aesthetics. Yet our educationfocuses only on the narrow.’

What we need, Ken concluded, is abroadening of education to meet these newchallenges. Human capacity is extraordinary. Itis the job of education to find out its potential,to bring it out and to tap it.

The ideathat we justhave to raisestandardsand all willbe well is justnot true.

3

exploring creativity

The NACCCE report is notable for its attemptto pin down two very slippery words: creativityand culture. In both cases, it considers andrejects the elite definitions - that only very rarepeople are creative and that culture consists onlyof works of high art. It acknowledges thesectoral definitions - that creativity is often seenas synonymous with the arts alone and thatculture is principally about appreciating thoseartforms - but demonstrates their narrowness.Creativity is, in truth,more democratic -everyone is capable of being creative in a wholerange of human activities, including the sciences.And culture, too, is better thought of as a wholeway of life,with shared values and a sense ofcommunal identity.

'I was disappointed the other day when wemet someone from the QCA [Qualificationsand Curriculum Authority] who said that thefirst thing we have got to do is definecreativity. It really isn't the case that this isall for want of a theory. If that were so, wewould have had a full-blooded arts curriculumabout thirty years ago.'

Although, as Ken noted with some frustration,the case for creativity has been made many timesin the past, it is worth noting that currentresearch is uncovering new evidence that mayturn out to strengthen the notion that artisticskills can develop intelligence in general.Althoughthere is a danger of oversimplifying thearguments, some findings are suggestive, asTamsyn Imison of NACCCE reported:

'In tests with trained musicians,researchers discovered that they listened tomusic using both left and right sides of thebrain, rather than just the right as had beenthought. They know more about the structureof the music and they listen to it bothanalytically and holistically, using bothfaculties. The implications are that training inmusic might help you develop the capacity to

use more parts of your brain at the same time.'Whatever the outcomes of exploring

creativity, it is generally accepted that the artsand the sciences have much more in commonthan the curriculum suggests.While the sciencescan be equally as creative as the arts,Ken argued,the arts are not as woolly as some suppose:

'Doing arts, as you know, is not aboutrunning wild. It is a discipline. It depends ona kind of delicate ecology between depth ofunderstanding and freedom of imagination,just as the sciences do. With suchdevelopments as multimedia, the distinctionsbetween the two are, in any case, becomingless and less meaningful.'

Most of the day's presentations anddiscussions focused on how this interpretation ofcreative education might then apply to practicein and out of the classroom,broadening theimpact of teaching and learning - and, in theprocess, actually raising those standards that theGovernment has been insisting on for so long.Mathilda Joubert,NACCCE Research Officer,cited an example of this catalytic effect:

'There's a lot in the report about learning -and nothing is more important to talk aboutthan learning and how we can enhancelearning. A primary head from Essex told arecent conference how, by following verymuch the principles in our report, he hadmanaged to double the SATs results in hisschool from around 40 to 87 per cent, andhad sailed through an OFSTED inspection. Heachieved all this by focusing on skills insteadof subjects and instilling the wholecurriculum with the arts and the naturalcultures of young people. It is the vibrancy ofthe school that matters - by putting creativityand culture at the heart of your work andrecognising where young people are comingfrom, you are much more likely to raise levelsof achievement.'

Doing artsis not aboutrunningwild. It is adiscipline.

'The word 'creativity' is a problem for some people. It conjures up the worstexcesses of progressive education. In fact, creativity is not some general faculty but a particular thing that a particular person is good at.' Ken Robinson

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challenging culture

While the conference was warm in its support fora broader definition of creativity - one that wouldapply to teachers as creative individuals as much asto young people themselves - it was left to LolaYoung to tease out a more critical view of culturethan perhaps the report itself proposed. She drewour attention to the word itself and to its equallyproblematic derivations in well-worn phrases, suchas 'multiculturalism' and 'cultural diversity'.What dothese mean in a society where racism, as the NACCCE report admits, is 'persistent and insidious'?

'In talking of cultural diversity, let's notthink we can gloss over the complexities,difficulties and problems involved. Anyconsideration of how the arts and creativity canbe used to foster tolerance, respect and allthose good, well-meaning words needs torecognise the long history of black presence inthis country, which isn't just about the last fiftyyears but about hundreds of years' impact onBritish culture.'

The impact of different cultures needs, Lolaurged, to be thought about carefully. On one level,it should make us cautious about sticking foreverto traditional hierarchies and divisions betweenartforms and disciplines. In any case, lots of theseboundaries are breaking down thanks totechnological developments.A broader point madeby Lola was that people from other culturaltraditions might take a very different view on whatthe place of the arts is in society:

'Multiculturalism seems to imply ajuxtaposition of a series of cultures, whereasmore and more of us are talking about culturalfusion and hybridity. This 'cultural diversity'may not be comfortable to live with - as we sawover the Salman Rushdie affair, which raisedcomplex and difficult issues. We're not headingfor some melting-pot nirvana where everyone'shappy and there's mutual respect.'

We have to think of different ways of discussing

and using the rich mix of cultural and racialdiversity - we need a new kind of inclusivediscourse. How, Lola wondered, can we still speakof 'ethnic minorities' when we are living in anincreasingly globalised culture? What culturaleducation needs to address, therefore, is howyoung people can be equipped to deal with thesereal complexities and difficulties:

'We should be encouraging young people toarticulate views and perspectives which do notnecessarily rely on whatever cultural scriptwe've given them, whether that is aboutidentity or about conformity and convention -or, indeed, about what the nature of the artsand culture is.'

Although NACCCE had taken young people’sviews into account, indirectly throughcommissioned research such as NFER's Arts In TheirView report, Lola and others acknowledged thatyoung people are having to reconcile their ownexperiences with our view of what theirexperiences are and ought to be.This implies we should be involving young people in the shapingof an 'ideal curriculum' - one that will preparethem for what will be a challenging future. Oneway it can be achieved is by opening up to thewider world outside the classroom, as Kate Kelly observed:

'I think there's finally a recognition thatyoung people don't cease to be learners oncethey are out of school. It isn't all about whathappens between 9.00 and 3.30. We have tovalue their learning experiences - which we orthey may not even think of as such. It'simportant to build creative programmes whichtake place beyond the curriculum but that canhave a meaningful relationship to what happensin school. We need 'link' teachers, people in andout of school who can support new activities,from out of school classes to summer schools tototally new kinds of projects.'

‘When culture is coupled with other words, like ‘creativity’, or ‘values’ or‘traditions’, slightly different meanings attach themselves to it.This is importantnot just for semantic or academic reasons, but because of what it may or may notobscure or lead us away from.’ Lola Young, Middlesex University

This ‘culturaldiversity' may not becomfortableto live with.

5

opening the gates

This challenge for education is not just aboutnew technology, with its ever-widening range ofaccess points to knowledge, its alternativeauthorities. Social change is much broader, witha booming economy heading in a radicallydifferent direction and a new urgency to issuesof social cohesion and equity.

Lesley Mansbridge is the head teacher ofHaggerston - a Technology College and BeaconSchool - where the NACCCE report, All OurFutures, was launched. She knows as well asanyone that the role of schools and of teachershas to change - learning has to be at the heartof everything, and everyone needs to be alearner: staff, pupils and all the otherstakeholders in the wider community:

'In a school what matters is a learningenvironment, which is based on a range ofteaching and learning styles and theacquisition of new knowledge, skills andunderstanding. This has huge implications forcurriculum delivery and teacher training. Alearning environment is one whichacknowledges cultural diversity and providesnew opportunities for learners. It encouragesthe freedom to explore, to take risks andlearn from mistakes.'

Quite the opposite, in fact, of one schoolLesley visited, where - sadly - the head hadwritten up the slogan, 'We aim to get it rightfirst time'. She argued, instead, that you learnthrough taking chances, challenging thelimitations of the National Curriculum andbeing prepared to change your practice:

'While I accept that the content of thecurriculum often restricts creativeopportunities, this does not excuse ourfailure to challenge pupils and teachers tomove beyond our and their expectations

and to take risks.'The NACCCE report is all the more

important when even the most recentguidelines from government agencies, like theQCA and OFSTED, persist in relegatingcreative learning to brief references, tuckedaway amidst pages dominated by the 'raisingstandards' agenda. Often, Lesley felt, suchreports tended to identify what children shouldbe taught, not what they should learn.

'Over a number of years we have tended tovalue that which we can measure, rather thanmeasure what we value. Our concern for highstandards as measured through examoutcomes means that we are still failing to find the balance between good academicresults and the personal, social and cultural development of our pupils. We need to find new ways of assessing andaccrediting learning.'

Above all, teachers need to continue aslearners themselves, keeping themselves on the cutting edge. Including creative learning in initial teacher training is critical but it needsto be followed through with innovativeapproaches to in-service training, to continuousprofessional development. Learning is, less and less, the preserve of schools andeducational institutions but shared amongst a wider partnership.

'If we are to learn from the report and move the agenda forward to benefit alllearners, it is important that those of us in education work in partnership with other agencies. This way we can ensure that the aims and objectives of All OurFutures, laudable and very welcome as they are, do not go unheeded. That they are acted upon.'

'Teachers are no longer the only gatekeepers of knowledge.They are facing thegreatest challenge they have ever faced.The implications of this challenge, as theinformation age unfolds, are not yet fully realised. Our future lies in the hands ofthe learners, not the learned.' Lesley Mansbridge, Haggerston School

Our futurelies in thehands of thelearners, notthe learned.

6

a broader landscape

The landscape is, as Kate Kelly from Islington'sEducation Business Partnership (EBP)remarked, otherwise pretty bleak.Where onceadvisers and inspectors roamed the land, thereis now only a minimal and fragmented structurein place.The status of the arts in schools hasdiminished, especially of dance and drama, notleast because most of the people whofacilitated them, who made the connectionsbetween teachers and artists, who had linkswith wider creative and cultural developmentsare no longer in post.

'The situation seems to have come fullcircle. I now regularly get calls from headteachers asking whether I know anyone whocan play piano for school assembly. And theyhave had to cut their peripatetic musicteaching because of the prescriptive nature ofthe literacy and numeracy programmes.'

So, the weaknesses are many, the strengthsless apparent. Meanwhile, across the wintrylandscape, a plethora of new funding schemeshave seeded: the New Opportunities Fund, theStandards Fund for Music, the Excellence inCities initiative with its focus on the gifted andtalented and a variety of Lottery and otherfunding streams.These undoubtedly represent awhole range of potential ways in which arts andcultural organisations can be brought (back)into the educational arena.Yet this new worldof opportunity is hedged in by doubts. How,asked Kate, do we make sense of it all?

'We need people on the ground, to brokerthese schemes and partnerships and make therelationships work. Because they don't justhappen, or only very rarely. We needstrategies so that the constantly changingpieces of the jigsaw can be fitted together.Schools are myopic worlds; often they don'tsee the bigger picture. So, the real issue is:how then can we do this 'joined-up' bit, howcan we work together?'

'If there's one positive message at the moment. I think it is about broadening thelandscape - because everyone acknowledges that schools cannot do it on their own.’

Kate Kelly, Arts Education Officer, Islington

The realissue is: howcan we worktogether?

Kate's own work with the EBP offers oneexample of how this might be achieved.Charged with bringing business and educationtogether, Kate is able to work with individualwriters and artists as well as larger artscompanies.All of them are businesses, whetherthey are in the commercial sector or not.Through her offices, a whole programme ofresidencies, gallery and museum visits, andcollaborative projects involving schools withother community-based groups has been madepossible.The partnerships do not have to begrand to be effective.

'Small interventions - a session with anartist at lunchtime or after school, or a one-off visit - can make a whole heap ofdifference in the ethos of a school, especially with particular groups of pupilsthat have become totally disengaged with the curriculum.'

From the other side of what is often thoughtof as a divide, businesses can play a part increative learning, as Kate herself learned at firsthand from her involvement with managers fromthe Halifax in the LWT Talent Challenge.

'It was one of the most dynamic learningexperiences I have ever had, not least interms of the exchange of ideas. We found wehad more in common than we might haveguessed, as we embarked on a lengthycreative process to run a project with twohundred local young people.'

Maybe part of the answer lies in looking outbeyond our own specialism - the arts - to seewhat models of practice businesses and othercreative sectors have to offer - such as sport,another of Kate's areas of responsibility.

'My eyes have been opened up to thepowers and possibilities of sport in schools.The arts are wonderful but they not the onlyway of working with young people in bothcreative and learning cultures.'

7

things working well

Some things are working well, according toconference delegates at the afternoon seminars.Schools do still manage to work together, andother kinds of relationships have grown in Londonas elsewhere with the establishment of EducationBusiness Partnerships, brokering new linksbetween the education sector, arts organisationsand business.The arts (education) forums aroundthe capital provide a vital network in developingand sustaining projects.

Money is sometimes there, too - although itcomes through a confusing variety of channels,among them the Millennium Festival Awardsfor All, the European Social Fund, regenerationinitiatives, borough Education DevelopmentPlans, Education Action Zones, and LEAP itself.There is a similar diversity amongst socialprogrammes - drug prevention is one - whichoffer opportunities for arts education to proveits worth and relevance.

A number of delegates cited the existence oflocal arts centres and galleries - and theemergence of new venues like Stratford Circus -as catalysts for arts education work. Not all arebuilding based; the youth arts team in TowerHamlets brings twenty years of experience to itsnew partnerships.

Dissemination of good practice is alsoimproving, not just with such major publications asthe NACCCE report but with individual projectreports.The demand for more arts educationwork is building, reflected for example in theincreasing requests for out-of-school activities andthe perception in some quarters that employmentis growing in the community-based arts sector.And, equally encouraging, as Tamsyn Imisonpointed out from her own experience, schoolsthemselves were discovering the benefits ofworking with artists and with each together:

‘The idea of schools working together has

not exactly been encouraged by government,which has divided us up according to leaguetables. I decided to get together with fifteenother schools from across the country tocommission a touring play from Adrian Mitchell... This is the sort of project that young peoplewill remember long after all the lessons onliteracy and numeracy have been forgotten.And it is replicable.’

Replicable - in theory.The afternoon seminarswere practical sessions and the hard-headed truthvoiced by many was that sustainability was the keychallenge.The agencies already in the field neednurturing and celebrating, but fresh partners needto be wooed - including those who have not yetrecognised that the arts can deliver their coreprogramme, such as borough departmentsengaged in urban regeneration.

To draw in new partners, schools and theirallies need to exploit the impact and legacy oftheir arts projects - to become advocates. LEAPoffers one route to speak more effectively acrossthe dividing lines, but the LEAs can still play acontinuing role in promoting the networking and partnership development essential tosustainability.

Arts education activists need, therefore, to actstrategically on all fronts, from constructingwatertight bids for funding to ensuring thatcontact databases are kept up to date, fromexploring the transferability of model projectsacross a whole borough and beyond to findingeffective ways to train artists to work in schools.According to Ken Robinson, the ground is fertilefor planting these kinds of seeds:

‘There are a lot of other things running our way at the moment, notably the shift in the economy and the way that the business community is starting to think about education.’

‘We look at our students as individuals and try to make connections with them,and between them and the outside world.We bring in artists, we work in galleries -where we have exhibited students’ work. Our head teacher isn’t daft; he’s changingthe curriculum to fit the arts in, because that way we produce the best students.’

Head of Art at a Bromley school and arts forum member

There area lot ofthingsrunningour way.

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meeting NACCCE objective one

Four main issues emerged from the discussionsabout the curriculum. One is the existence of arange of trends and actual initiatives in theeducation sector that could serve as vehicles forthe defence and promotion of creativity in thecurriculum.The concepts of lifelong learning andof ‘inclusive’ education are particularly useful.Thetargets set for quality of teaching and learning, thenotion of new citizenship in the NationalCurriculum and the rising profile of ICT(Information & Communications Technology)provide valuable opportunities for arguing thecase for creative and cultural education. Even thecurrent emphasis on outcomes and outputs canbe used in support of this work, as Kate Kellypointed out:

‘We are living in a world of prescriptivemeasuring, and I think it is important that wecan and do assess the difference that our workmakes to young people. It is possible tomeasure success - what even the DfEEacknowledges as ‘value added’. And we shouldcontinue to be concerned about issues ofmotivation and self-esteem, about learning inother areas and gaining transferable skills,about the importance of understanding ourown and others’ cultures - we mustn’t fight shy of showing how our programmes make a difference and that they can be evaluatedand measured.’

The second substantive point is that all schoolsneed to be encouraged to interpret and deliverthe National Curriculum itself in creative ways.Mainstream programmes can benefit fromeducation ‘outreach’; both feed and refresh eachother.This is the kind of message that demands tobe broadcast, along with all the other arguments.Which brings us to the third issue: the

n To ensure that the importance of creative and cultural education is explicitly recognised and provided for in schools’ policies for the whole curriculum, and in government policy forthe National Curriculum.

‘We don’t live in a monolithic state.There are some things the government can do,and some that schools can and should do. Many are doing them already, of course,but we need to encourage and enable all those others out there to do it too.’

Ken Robinson

importance of advocacy.Tamsyn spoke for many:‘It is so exciting to be involved in learning -

particularly creative learning, and particularlywhen you do the unexpected and involveeveryone, young people as much as staff andother adults. I think we should have manymore advocacy schools that actually welcomepeople in to see what we are doing. If we dothat, it will touch people who hadn’t thoughtsuch things were possible.’

All schools need advocates to bridge the gapbetween different sectors, to initiate genuinedialogue and to drive the rhetoric towards reality.Sometimes the head or a governor might be thatadvocate, but not all heads or governors areconvinced - that’s the challenge for the future,according to many speakers.The framework thatused to be in place to argue the case is now infragments - which leads to the fourth point: thatthe old network of advocates in the communityand in the local authority needs to bereconfigured through existing systems, such as thearts education forums, and through new bodieslike LEAP. Until that is in place, it will be up toindividual teachers and governors to take themessage to heart - and to their colleagues andtheir peers.

‘I met a head the other day at a conferenceon theatre education, who said that he hadn’tbeen able to get hold of this report. I know it’sbig and heavy and head teachers get upset athow many trees have been cut down and,anyway, it’s too much to get through. Well, wedo need a synopsis, but if teachers don’t haveownership of this and if school governors don’thave ownership, then we’ve got an awfully biggap to close.

Kate Kelly

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meeting NACCCE objective twon To ensure that teachers and other professionals are encouraged and trained to use methods and materials that facilitate the development of young people’s creative abilities and cultural understanding.

‘Creative learning stems from creative teaching. Unfortunately, a lot of teachers arenot creative - not because they are incapable of it but because the situations theywork in make it very difficult for them to be creative. I welcome all therecommendations in All Our Futures on teacher training and in-service professionaldevelopment, but I have another suggestion to add: that all teachers, including thoseworking in maths and science, should have at least one weekend every couple ofyears where they do creative workshops with artists and arts organisations.Teachers don’t get enough feeding themselves to become the kind of people we’dlike them to be.’ Kate Kelly

Conference delegates broadly agreed that initialteacher training needs greater breadth andbalance and that courses can lack meaningfulguidance on the role of the arts in and across thecurriculum.They would echo Kate’s call forgreater exposure of teachers to arts practice andarts practitioners. A whole raft of furthersuggestions were made on how this might beachieved, from simply offering complimentarytickets to events or private views to more seriousface-to-face encounters, where artists andteachers might train together. A call went up, too,for more teacher placements and internships.

All this would help to end the evident isolationof creative teachers and bring their achievementswider recognition and, hopefully, emulation - asone teacher from Bromley remarked:

‘It’s the teachers who deliver the results inmy school and I don’t just mean academicresults. Thanks to their hard work in spreadingthe arts through the curriculum, we turn outstudents that are self-motivated andindependent learners.’

Like the tango, however, it takes two to makean effective arts education project - at least two:the teacher and the artist, as Ken Robinsonpointed out:

‘We need to keep an emphasis on improvingthe capacities and skills of teachers in trainingto provide this kind of education - but it’s notjust about teachers. We don’t train our artists

to do this work either. The training institutionsare still focused on the spotlight centre stage,producing the next virtuosi. That’s important,but most artists will spend their lives doingother things as well. Over the last 25 years,there has been a vast amount of work in socialapplications of the arts that artists are stillnot being properly trained for. It’s ascandalous waste of creative capacity.’

While acknowledging that some good work isgoing on, many speakers felt that the situationdemands a more strategic and comprehensiveapproach to the training of artists to work in thisway. Potential trainees need access points to suchtraining across the capital and guidance on how to choose the right course. New forms ofdelivery, such as distance learning over the web,should be explored and implemented.All forms of training deserve accreditation, so thatprofessionalism can be measured throughout the arts education sector.

‘Many recommendations in All Our Futuresare already operating in the arts sector. Thecall for a national programme of advanced in-service training for artists to work inpartnership with formal and informaleducation has been partly advanced in variousparts of Britain. There is a lot of research andactivity but it’s not yet really part of a largerstrategy.’

Felicity Allen, Hayward Gallery

10

Advocacy, brokering and partnership: this triangularstrategy was visited and revisited during theafternoon. People argued, on the one hand, for seekingendorsements from the great and the good, forcelebrity approval, even for PR stunts to drawattention to the importance of creative and culturaleducation - all this in the hope that recognition,support and money might then flow in. On the otherhand, they agreed, the good work being undertaken bysome of the Education Business Partnerships (EBPs)should be expanded and consolidated.After all, not allEBPs are interested or involved to the same extent inthis area of development - but they need to be. Andto ask who else can match businesses with schoolsand bring them to the table should not perhaps be leftas a rhetorical question but should stimulatediscussion about other possible mechanisms.

Arts organisations are often faced with thedaunting task of approaching schools directly - a time-consuming process whose success may depend ontapping existing enthusiasms for arts education workrather than tracking down schools and teachers whohave not participated before.The luckier ones canapproach brokers to make those new partnerships; inthe Hayward Gallery’s case, this might be LambethEBP or the Institute of Education.Yet Felicity Allen,Head of Education at the gallery, counsels caution:

‘I do want to establish these partnershipsrecommended in All Our Futures, but I also want tolook at the nature of these partnerships, what theyare for, and who is funding what, when sometimesno money changes hands. Some partnerships are sosuperficial that it seems that only the agenciesthemselves are in partnership, while others are solong-term and deep that they become a kind of club.’

The education work offered by culturalorganisations is still mixed in its quality and educationdepartments and officers still vary in status and

meeting NACCCE objective three

‘Schools cannot be sole traders in education any more.The whole concept of whoeducates and why and when is altering around us.The education that we arelooking for in the future must be a collaborative process. It isn’t something thatschools ought to feel they have to offer on their own.’ Ken Robinson

n To promote the development of partnerships between schools and outside agencies which are nowessential to provide the kinds of creative and cultural education that young people need and deserve.

influence. In the worst cases, the educationprogramme is not part of the general policy direction,but trails it and, at best, tries to mediate it in someway. In the other cases, education work amounts tomuch more than producing teacher packs and, when itdoes, it calls for care in negotiating the terms of thecreative partnership.

While some arts organisations, according toFelicity, wonder whether they shouldn’t be choosingthe content of projects and deciding how they are tobe delivered, others - like Anna Ledgard - see dangersin too prescriptive a role:

‘As arts organisations, we sometimes damagethe situation by not recognising the essential roleof the teacher. The partnership must be a proactiveone, not reactive. There has been a lot of reactivepractice and it hasn’t done the teachers’ or theschools’ confidence any good.’

Partnerships can founder on other issues, of course- lack of resources, for one, bringing us back to theissue of how important it is to sustain the work.Without continued and secure financial support, asFelicity argued in her presentation,‘the policy isimplausible and the practice limited’. Core and/orlongitudinal funding will make more research anddevelopment possible and will allow sufficient time fora sound exit strategy.

In Ken Robinson’s view, strategic thinking aboutfunding should also happen at government level, too,where, to take a current example, £900m (a figure setto increase to £1.5b) is going through the DfEE’sstandards fund for the in-service training of teachersand to support school initiatives:

‘There isn’t anything there that says ‘creativity’or the arts - none of this money is directed at the kind of objectives we have been talking about today. The money is there. It’s a question of setting priorities.’

11

agenda for action

n sustain the collaborative relationship between LAB, LEAP and NACCCE inworking towards the realisation of the creative and cultural education agenda

n shape and influence the development of a creative and cultural educationvision for London through further consultation and partnership

n develop LEAP as a linchpin organisation in the development of a sustainablecultural infrastructure, providing contacts, information and opportunityacross the city

n exploit opportunities to research quality in current arts-rich initiatives, eglearning beyond the curriculum and exploration of styles of learning

n enable young people to be able to articulate their own views on creativityand the arts in a public forum; work towards expanding opportunities for work experience in arts post-14 through fostering partnerships withcultural industries

n promote creative and cultural education in teacher training and in-servicetraining, and provide opportunities for placements in the cultural industriesfor teachers

n create more training courses and education placements for artspractitioners wishing to work in education

n devise a higher profile media campaign to demystify school and artscultures and to promote the value of creative and cultural education inschool and community settings

n create arts education advocates by targeting senior managers, governorsand parents and through dissemination of model projects

n foster Education Business Partnerships as serious players in brokeringpartnerships between education and the arts sector

n ensure that essential contact and project information is accessible and up to date, eg on databases, and that networks are maintained and developed

n audit current national publications and reports on arts education andrelated practice, and identify research gaps to be filled

n publish examples of good practice, practice that represents quality on manyindicators - accessibility, inclusivity, innovation, strategic impact, sustainability,value for money, effective partnerships

and ensure that the executive summary of the NACCCE report -All Our Futures - is published.

These action points are aimed variously at individual teachers, artists and otherarts education activists; at local and regional agencies, including LEAP and LAB;and at the national bodies, including NACCCE.The conference recommended thataction should be taken to:

12

the first step

Twelve thousand copies of All Our Futures havebeen published. NACCCE wrote to 150organisations around the country to see if theywanted to meet up to discuss the report.Instead of the expected half dozen takers, therewere nearly 70 - including the Regional ArtsBoards, the National Campaign for the Arts, theNUT, Equity and the TUC. Many of them saidimmediately that they wanted to run with thereport as a policy document.

‘We wanted to prove to the governmentthat creative and cultural education isn’tsomething extra, a new burden on teachers’plates. It is exactly what good teachers andgood people in the area of creative educationare already doing. We just want them torecognise it, to reward it, and to make iteasier for other people to do it, too. We wantthe policy to catch up with the practice.’

Ken RobinsonUp to the time the conference was held, the

government had not made any significantresponse to the NACCCE report, despite the

‘This is not an arts lobby.This is a group of artists, scientists, business people andeducationalists, which is really important strategically. It’s too easy to marginalise alobby group.With David Blunkett’s blessing, we set up the committee [NACCCE]and met for a year before coming up with All Our Futures. Now, anything thatDavid Blunkett does affects 24,000 schools. It’s too easy to say: something shouldbe done.We asked what should be done, how and over what timescale. Our reportsets out the context, defines creativity, explains how it can be related to culture.’

Ken Robinson

fact that two Secretaries of State hadcommissioned it.The attempt to persuade ajunior education minister that what schools andother interested (but very busy) parties coulddo with was a cheap-to-produce summary ofthe report had met with a lukewarm reception,according to Ken Robinson. But the process hasnot stalled entirely. Indeed, it cannot. Its timehas come and, sooner or later, we - and thegovernment - will have to admit it and take theappropriate action.

While we wait for action from the topdown, for the government to grasp the fullimplications of the NACCCE report and thechallenges it presents, we need to work fromthe bottom up, to start spreading the goodpractice, to encourage every school and everyarts organisation to work in this developmentalway, proving by example, by the quality andquantity of projects, that this is all reallyworthwhile supporting.

Finally, Ken Robinson brings us back to the future:

‘I think the good news is that at the end of the nineteenthcentury, the people who said it couldn’t be done were provenwrong. I hope that when people look back at those of us who aretrying to steward the system now, they’ll look too at our criticsand say that they were just as wrong.We are trying to set acourse for education and cultural policy for the next century.Weare saying to the government that this isn’t an overnight process.It will take a while - probably five to ten years - but I think it istime that they and we took the first step.’

Southbank University Middlesex University Caterham High School British Museum Greenwich & DocklandsFestivals Hayes School Lyric Hammersmith Greenwich Dance Agency LB Enfield Survivor's Poetry LB TowerHamlets Darrick Wood Senior School Spread The Word Apples and Snakes Wessex Gardens Primary SchoolKensington & Chelsea College LB Barnet Tate Modern The Prince's Trust Studio 3 Arts Stratford Circus LBKingston Second Wave Hackney Free & Parochial School Caramba! Marjorie McClure School Piano CircusRoyal National Theatre Clean Break Theatre Company Waltham Forest Arts in Education Network HackneyMusic Development Trust Half Moon Young Peoples' Theatre LIFT Spitalfields Festival Redbridge MusicService LB City of Westminster Education Centre for Waltham Forest NESTA Arts Council of England LBTower Hamlets Wigmore Hall RB Kensington & Chelsea Unicorn Theatre Womens' Art Library LB GreenwichIRIE! dance theatre Oxford House Greenwich Young People's Theatre Institute of Education A SpaceUniversity of North London Public Art Development Trust Polka Theatre Blackheath Halls LB LewishamTheatre Royal Stratford East Café Gallery at Southwark Park Arts Path Project WAC Performing Arts & MediaCollege LB Hounslow The Circus Space The Making Place St Mary's RC School National Youth Music TheatreHaggerston School The Kaos Organisation Royal Festival Hall London Bubble The Art of Change CenterpriseLiterature Development Project Institute of Public Policy Research City of Westminster Arts CouncilAnimarts Downshall Centre Education Centre for Waltham Forest Merton Music Foundation AkademiIslington LEA Offices Shape Urban Development Hackney Education Business Partnership Darrick WoodJunior School Community Music Kids' Club Network Association of British Orchestras Churchill TheatreChildren's Music Workshop Young Vic Summer Education (UK) Battersea Arts Centre Sinfonia 21Ambassadors Theatre Group Education Extra Trinity RC High School Unicorn Theatre Harrow Teachers'Centre ITC Oakdale Junior School Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music East London DanceSeven Kings Primary School Elmhurst Primary School Oval House Engage English & Media Centre Art In ThePark ACAVA National Foundation for Youth Music LB Bexley London Print Studio Contemporary DanceTrust, The Place Harrow Teachers' Centre Mousetrap Foundation Artec LB Bromley St Helier Youth CentreCreative Knowledge Company LB Camden Paul Hamlyn Foundation Soho Theatre Company LB Hammersmith& Fulham Enfield Education Business Partnership

Organisations represented at the conference

The report is published by the LondonEducation Arts Partnership in collaborationwith London Arts Board.LEAP is a new independent companyarising out of LAB’s very successfulborough-based arts partnership fundingand development programme. LEAP’saims are framed by six core activities:advocacy for the arts in education -raising the quality of arts educationprovision - provision of training for artistsand educators - provision ofresearch/evaluation opportunities -sharing and disseminating good practice- fundraising for arts educationprogrammes.

For further information, visit the LEAPwebsite at www.londonartsed.org.uk

For more information about LAB, visitits website at www.arts.org.uk/lab or contact:London Arts Board, Elme House,133 Long Acre, London WC2E 9AFT: 020 7240 1313 Minicom: 020 7670 2450F: 020 7670 2400 E: info@lonab.co.ukPlease phone or email LAB if you wish to obtain this report in Braille, large print or electronic formats.

The text: Richard Ings T: 020 8802 8620E: ings@digbytes.freeserve.co.ukThe design: Metafor T: 01603 821022E: metafor@ftech.co.uk

BOOKING FORMvaluing creativity in learning

ARTS ED2000

In November 1999, one hundred and thirty delegates metat the LEAP/LAB conference All Our Futures: Making itHappen to discuss the findings of the NACCCE report, ‘Allour Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education.’ An agendafor action in arts education was formulated.

Through keynote speeches and a programme of seminarsand workshops, Arts Ed 2000 will address this agenda,looking at issues such as:

Innovation in contemporary arts education

Creative partnerships between arts, education, business, industry and other sectors

Development and sustainability

Communications, networking and information exchange

What the arts and creativity mean to schools and youth organisations

Arts Ed 2000 also plays host to London’s first ArtsEducation Exchange where exhibitors will introducedelegates to a variety of:

innovative projects and initiatives

agencies and services

funding and training opportunities

At the time of going to press confirmed key contributorsto Arts Ed 2000 include Rex Pogson, Director ofWarwickshire LEA’s Artszone; Felicity Woolf, currentlyworking with the Arts Council and the QCA on ‘From Policyto Partnership: developing the arts in schools’ andadvising DCMS on the Artsmark scheme; Torsten Friedag,Director, Islington Arts and Media School.

Please send a separate (photocopied) form for each individual delegate to: Arts Ed 2000, Salisbury House Arts Centre, Bury Street West,Edmonton, London N9 9LA Telephone: 020 8360 7779

Friday 30th June 2000 9.30am to 4.30pmThe FriendsHouse, 173-177 Euston Road London NW1

Co-ordinated by London Arts Board and London Education Arts Partnership with the co-operation of the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education (NACCCE)

Booking Details: Please reserve me a place at Arts Ed 2000.

Name Job title: Organisation:

Phone: Fax: E-mail:

Do you have any special mobility/sensory/dietary requirements? Please specify

I enclose a cheque for £45/£65/please invoice (delete where applicable)

Conference fees are: £45 for individuals or small organisations (turnover under £15,000) £65 for large organisations (turnover over £15,000).

l Fees include lunch and refreshments throughout the day

l Full conference details and choices of workshop and seminar sessions will accompany confirmation of your booking.

l Cheques should be made payable to LEAP and should be sent, together with the booking form or within three weeks of receipt of

invoice to the address given above.

l The deadline for booking is Friday 26th May.

l Cancellation of a confirmed booking must be received by 12th June 2000, otherwise the

full amount is payable.l Please notify us of requests for sign language interpretation by 12th June 2000.

l The Friends House is accessible to wheelchair users and is fitted with an induction loop.

London Arts Board