13 January 2021 Review of Post-16 Qualifications at level 3: Second stage consultation closing Friday 15 January *STOP PRESS* Consultation deadline extended to 31 January. The government is consulting on whether level 3 qualifications, other than A Levels and T Levels, should be funded in the future. The proposals could mean qualifications such as BTEC Nationals and UAL Diplomas are no longer funded.
05 January 2021 What we did in 2020 Welcome to our annual round-up for CLA activity. In our 2019 round-up we predicted that 2020 would hold ‘upheavals for the arts and education sectors’. This now sounds like the understatement of the decade. The Covid-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the context in which we are working and will continue to do so in 2021.
08 December 2020 Spending Round Briefing – what it means for arts and cultural learning On 25 November, Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced the details of this year’s Spending Round, meaning that he set the budgets for government departmental spending for 2021-2022.
03 December 2020 Cultural Learning workforce survey The Cultural Learning Alliance (CLA) exists to champion a right to arts and culture for every child. To do this we need a vibrant workforce to deliver cultural learning. The CLA is asking freelancers and colleagues working in organisations to fill in this short survey about roles in cultural learning, contracts and redundancies.
03 December 2020 Policy and Practice round-up December 2020 This month we bring you news of a range of reports highlighting the impact of Covid on children experiencing disadvantage; new Covid guidance from government; how to get involved in the UNESCO Futures of Education initiative; STEAM activities; and ICYMI a DCMS report: the role of arts in improving health and wellbeing.
24 November 2020 Ofsted reports on the impact of Covid-19 in schools – ‘many’ schools report restrictions on teaching arts On 10 November Ofsted published its second series of reports on the impact of the pandemic. It summarised over 900 visits to education and social care providers during September and October. These visits are not inspections and do not make a judgement about the settings.
16 October 2020 Policy and Practice round-up October 2020 This month we bring you news of the removal of ITT bursaries for arts subjects; Centre for Cultural Value’s conference; Place2Be’s wellbeing CPD; Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s Teacher Development Fund; more evidence on the value of studying music; key findings on remote CPD and learning from the Education Endowment Foundation; emergency funding from the Culture Recovery Fund and the Clore Duffield Foundation; and Creative Generation Young & Emerging Leaders Forum.
09 October 2020 Hours of arts teaching and number of arts teachers in England’s secondary schools mostly stable but not recovering after years of decline Department for Education figures published in September 2020 show that in the last two years the number of arts teachers fell by -4%, and the number of hours the arts were taught fell by -3%. The number of children in England’s secondary schools went up by +5% over the same period.
09 October 2020 Work with us: invitation to tender for admin support The CLA is looking to appoint a freelancer to provide admin support to the two Co-Directors.
10 September 2020 Policy and Practice round-up September 2020 This month we bring you news of two new reports on the attainment gap; £1 billion of catch-up support from the DfE; free internet and mobile data for pupils experiencing disadvantage; a report on class and jobs in the creative industries; £1.57 billion of support for the cultural sector; the launch of Covid-secure guidance for learning teams in cultural organisations; updated guidance from DCMS on Arts Sector Reopening and the #HereForCulture campaign from DCMS.