As part of our series of blogs this summer about the pressing questions facing the arts education sector Basheba ‘Bashiie’ Baptiste (writer and producer), Belmiro Matos da Costa (activist and organiser) and Christy Ku (poet and performer), part of Sour Lemon’s creative  leadership programme, write about their experiences of facilitating roundtables for leaders in the UK creative and cultural sector.

A large amount of guidance on reopening educational settings in England has been provided by the government over the past months. The Department for Education has been releasing information to schools, often with little notice, throughout the pandemic which has been criticised by school leaders.

On Sunday 5 July an emergency financial package for the arts and culture of £1.57 billion was announced by the Treasury. Government announced that this was the single largest, one-off investment that has ever been made into culture in the UK.

Like the weather during the current climate emergency, extremes characterise the cultural learning landscape this summer. Covid-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement are washing away what we took for granted and throwing into greater relief the lack of social justice in Britain. This blog looks at the raft of different proposals and initiatives that are developing as a result of the changes.