It’s hard to believe that the Durham Commission report on Creativity in Education is here, and that it’s nearly 18 months since we popped in to Durham University for a cuppa as they were kicking it off while we were passing on our National Careers/Science Week Tour.
A CREATIVITY REVOLUTION
We’d been in East Rainton Primary, a school in former coalfield in Sunderland that morning, a city where a year or so prior Darren Henley, CEO of the Arts Council had called for a ‘Creativity Revolution’.
We’d gone in with our #ARTofROCKETS session in which we talked about art (the killer combination of creativity, tech and people if you didn’t know).
Inspired by the true story of four boys growing up in a dead end coal mining town in West Virginia in the 50’s we’d made paper rockets and fired a real dynamite rocket, but the moment came when we heard music from the next room. See film over there to get a feel for that wonderful morning in just one socially challenged school that prioritises creativity, art and culture.
OFSTED ARE CLEAR
Just a year or so before that we’d visited another school in Sunderland, Northern Saints Primary. It was a four school visit over two days organised by a dynamic teacher together with a community briefing on the middle evening.
It turned out he’d attended our Regional Launch event in Sunderland previously with Artist, Inventor and STEAM Co. Inspirator Dominic Wilcox who spoke for us alongside then Arts Council Chair, Sir Peter Bazalgette, Chi Onwurah and others.
At Northern Saints Primary we saw another outstanding example of a school that put creativity at its heart, a school, a city that understands the power of Creativity to Inspire Children in their Learning, to Create Careers and Engage Community.
As the then head teacher, Steve Williamson said in the short film below “Ofsted are clear, they celebrate creativity, but it takes brave leaders”, so why is art and creativity under such pressure in our schools.
Creativity Crisis
The pressure on art and creativity in our schools is well documented, see this great recent piece by the Cultural Learning Alliance.
It’s going to impact our economy and society. We’re concerned we’re facing a creativity crisis.
Since starting this journey we’ve been baffled by the Marmite like nature attitude to creativity in our schools and the toxic attacks hurled at otherwise highly respected creative academics and commentators such as Sir Ken Robinson and Prof Sugata Mitra, the former who partly inspired our journey and the latter who we are delighted to include on our board of advisers.
There appear to be many factors at play here, some political with many of the most aggressive seemingly funded by shady far right think tanks who don’t see the need to disclose their funding sources. We have documented that line of enquiry in this recent blog inspired by The Guardian’s campaign, Change is Possible.
There are budget issues and aspects of current education policy that aren’t doing creativity and art in schools any favours but for us the biggest issue is ignorance, ignorance among some teachers and parents as to the value of creativity in our schools, work and lives.
We’re proud, long standing members of the Creative Industries Federation and members of the HE/Skills group who recently launched a campaign targeting secondary students and parents with messages and information around creative career pathways, which is a great start.
Echoing the words of Prof Robert Winston and Lord Michael Heseltine, we are adamant that we need to get them in Primary.
A WORD OF WARNING
So what did the Durham Commission have to say? Well what we’ve been saying all along (though we don’t pretend it’s rocket science) and what Sir Ken Robinson said in his legendary TED talk, essentially that “Creativity is now as important as Literacy”.
Let’s be clear here too that by creativity in schools, we mean teaching creativity (what we teach - subjects) and teaching creatively (how we teach - pedagogy).
But first, a word of warning to anyone minded to start telling teachers what and how to teach.
A well rehearsed and compelling meme is now well established in many education circles that those who have never taught in schools have no right to preach to those who have.
Indeed the highly respected, supported and articulate, DfE ‘Tsar’ Tom Bennett kicked it off in his TED review of Sir Ken’s book ‘Creative Schools’ in which he called Sir Ken ‘a guru of a topic he has little experience of” and a ‘‘butcher given a ticker tape parade by the national union of pigs’ saying it “isn’t the first time someone who doesn’t actually teach children has told us what we’re all doing wrong when we teach children”.
Also in the TES, Carl Hendrick, then the Director of Education at the highly respected Wellington College said, in this article “Ken Robinson is a teacher-basher: schools must stop listening to his Panglossian ideas”
After we pointed out, politely, that art and creativity was a right of every child and teacher and actually quite important STEAM Co. were blocked by Wellington College’s Education Festival and the four papers we’d been told would be included in the Festival line up, that we had exhibited at the year before with Barclays and Google, had been rejected by the committee.
A ‘creativity boost’ for schools
So amidst all the above, the Durham Commission calls for ‘creativity boost’ for schools saying (and we quote):
Teaching for creativity in schools must be prioritised to equip young people with the skills they need in later life, according to a new report.
Following 18 months of research, the Durham Commission on Creativity and Education has launched its report and recommendations with a long-term vision for promoting creativity in education.
Equal opportunities
The Commission, a collaboration between Arts Council England and Durham University, found evidence of the positive impact of creativity and creative thinking in our lives.
It therefore suggests all schools, from early years to post-16 education, should be better enabled to support teaching for creativity for all young people, whatever their background.
The Commission adds that it is an issue of fairness that every child is given the opportunity to develop their creativity.
Call for change
The report calls for a range of organisations to deliver this vision including the Department for Education (DfE), Ofsted, Ofqual, Institute for Apprenticeships, Nesta, BBC, Local Cultural Education Partnerships (LCEPs), and Arts Council England.
The recommendations include:
The development of a pilot national network of Creativity Collaboratives set up through joint working between DfE, the Arts Council and education trusts
Better recognition, research and evaluation of teaching for creativity in schools and a recognition of this teaching in the Ofsted inspection process
A clearer focus on digital technology and its role in a creative education
Inclusion of the arts as standard in the curriculum to key stage 3 and a National Plan for Cultural Education
A focus on early years learning including training for the workforce
Creative opportunities out of school hours and in the world of work
Thinking creatively
The Commission believes that through engaging in opportunities for creative learning, grounded in subject knowledge and understanding, students’ creative capacity will be nurtured, and their personal, social and academic development greatly enriched.
With these advantages, the report finds that young people will enter society and the world of work able to think and work creatively across disciplines and sectors and champion the UK as a leader in creativity
CLICK HERE to read a transcript of Sir Nicholas Serota’s piece on BBC Radio 4 Today programme launching the Commission’s report and CLICK HERE to read the full report
FIRST THOUGHTS
There’s a lot of good stuff in the commission’s report, and we applaud it all, for what it’s worth. We didn’t get invited to the launch, but as it happens are busy working in schools this week taking an #ARTofCODE day to five schools with a grant we got off Google and support from the Arts Council.
There are echoes of previous work in the report from before our time, such as the For All Our Futures report led by Sir Ken Robinson and the Creative Partnerships programme that was one of the first casualties of the current government’s reforms under Mr Gove, so quite why a government that has ‘had enough of experts’ would value this report remains to be seen.
We sincerely hope it does take heed and it was great to see a former Education Secretary, Nicky Morgan now head of the DCMS, announce a well timed £250m for art and cultural projects this last weekend (especially the National Railway Museum of steam power, even if we now need STEAM power).
This commission report includes little no one knew already and the proposals are great but nothing is going to change overnight.
We were particularly pleased to see the emphasis on Collaboration. not least as (not many people know) that the Co. in our non-profit Community Enterprise STEAM Co. stands for Collaboration (check at Companies House if you don’t believe us).
On the back of HRH the Duke of Cornwall’s event at the Royal Albert Hall last Summer, we launched a #CollaborateForCreativity campaign at the London Design Festival last year calling for creative people and organisations to work with us and many have.
We ran two events this year, boosted by a book ‘Education -a Manifesto for Change’ by Richard Gerver which advocates for collaboration to drive the change to many want to see in all aspects of education.
Meanwhile however we’ve been working on a model that works and is ready to roll out.
With Phase 1 of our dastardly plan complete - to prove our collaborative inspiration and engagement model, raise profile and build a network we’re now ready to go to Phase 2 to prove it can scale and be sustainable.
In our #ARTCONNECTS19 podcast we got the chance to tell social innovation guru and CEO of the RSA, Matthew Taylor all about it. He almost fell off his chair and offered to do what he could to help us roll it out.
THAT’S THE TALK. LET’S WALK
At STEAM Co. we do talk. And we walk it.
We campaign for, inspire and action creativity in our schools, work and lives.
We’re a bunch of creative carers - parents, teachers, artists all.
We care about kids, creativity and all our futures.
We say ‘art is what we call it when what we do might connect us’. It powers dreams. Hope too.
We connect our kids with their art, whatever it is.
And our communities with their schools.
JOIN US IN LIVERPOOL
We’ve run events all over the UK - Sunderland, Liverpool, Ironbridge, London and our next takes us back to a city that knows only too well the power of Creativity to Inspire Kids, Create Careers and Connect Community.
Rejuvenated as a European City of Capital in 2004, once home to the Beatles. now to Paul McCartney’s LIPA (Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts) and the John Lennon School of Art and Design, Liverpool is one of the most creative and inspiring cities in the UK, if not Europe.
We were delighted to hold our first regional launch event there 5 years ago, at which Sir Ken Robinson spoke.
We were delighted when Liverpool School of Art and Liverpool John Moores University offered to collaborate with us on the #OURART19 Week of our #ARTCONNECTS19 Festival of Creative Schools, Work and Lives.
We have a whole week of events lined up including sessions in local primary schools, a community screening, an art school day, a conference, a community day and a party. You can read more about it here and sign up for updates.
We’re still looking for a few sponsors to help ut the icing on the cake so do get in touch if you can help.
It all coincides with a rare performance by The Beatles back in the city, but more significantly the closing weekend of a remarkable exhibition at Tate Liverpool who has inspired our week in no small way and will find it’s way into classrooms across Liverpool and the UK a bit quicker than the Durham Commission’s.
We wish them well and hope we too will be able to join them to #Collaborate for Creativity.