As part of our series of blogs this summer on the pressing questions facing arts education, CLA Advisory Panel member Greg Klerkx, co-founder of arts company Nimble Fish writes about the arts and wellbeing.

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.

Joe Hallgarten, Principal Consultant at the Education Development Trust and a member of the CLA Advisory Panel writes here in a personal capacity about how we can respond to a ‘pandemic of certainty’.

This month we bring you news of research from the Education Endowment Foundation showing the attainment gap could widen by 36% as a result of school closures; updated Department for Education guidance for school reopening and reopening dates from Scotland and Wales; Let’s Create packs from Arts Council England; Covid secure guidance being developed for arts and heritage learning spaces; a call for CLA members to contribute to ‘task and finish’ groups; and a survey on arts and heritage learning services and spaces.

Paul Reeve, CEO of Into Film, a film learning organisation working across all four UK nations and a member of the CLA Advisory Panel, responds to the question: What is Covid-19 teaching us we can do differently in arts and cultural education? 

This month we bring you news that the Welsh Government has extended Creative Learning through the Arts; resources from the EEF and DfE to help education settings; recommendations from the EPI on preventing the disadvantage gap from increasing during and after the Covid-19 pandemic; and the Education select committee Inquiry into the impact of Covid-19 and interviews with the Ofsted Chief Inspector and Minister for Education.

Sally Bacon, Executive Director, Clore Duffield Foundation and founder member of the CLA writes about looking after the corona class of 2020, and why cultural organisations must keep the lights on for learning.