News

Policy and Practice round-up May 2015

05 May 2015

This month we bring you news of What Next?, Creativity vs. Robots, Darren Henley's new role, ArtWorks reports and a call for proposals, CLA at the Hay Festival and the Ahead for Culture conference

What Next?

If the election has fired your desire to get more involved in influencing decision makers, or made you think more about what you want for and from culture why not join your local What Next? chapter. What Next? is a movement bringing together arts and cultural organisations from across the UK, to articulate and strengthen the role of culture in our society. 

What Next? wants to engage the public in new and different conversations about how and why the arts are important, and to become a catalyst for fresh thinking and new policy ideas. Read more and find a local chapter on their website. Everyone is welcome and you don’t need an invite – just turn up and take part.

The CLA works very closely and collaboratively with What Next?, helping them craft their education policy asks and providing evidence.

 

Creativity vs. Robots

Nesta has published the Creativity vs. Robots report which presents compelling evidence of why the UK needs to invest in the creative economy and creative education.

Some jobs are increasingly at risk of automation as advances in Machine Learning and Mobile Robotics team with big data to allow computers to substitute for labour across non-routine tasks. However, creative jobs are more resistant to automation. Nesta found that: 

87 per cent of highly creative workers are at low or no risk of automation, compared with 40 per cent of jobs in the UK workforce as a whole

 

Nesta made five recommendations on how the government can build the number of creative jobs. Recommendation number one is:

The government should end the bias against multi-disciplinary education in our education system – turning STEM in to STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics).

 

Nesta also called on the Russell Group of universities to include arts in their list of ‘facilitating subjects’.

We wholeheartedly endorse the report and its recommendations.

If you are working with parents who are concerned about the employment prospects of students who choose arts subjects the report provides useful evidence of their value. It includes the nugget that the creative industries account for 2.6 million jobs employing more people than Advanced Manufacturing, Financial Services and Construction and it shows why creativity is an important marketable skill.

 

Darren Henley takes up his role as the new Arts Council England Chief Executive

On the 20 April Darren Henley, who led the Henley Review of Cultural Education and Henley Review of Music Education, joined Arts Council England as the new Chief Executive. Read his first blogs here.

We look forward to seeing how Henley will bring his wide expertise in cultural learning to bear on the work of Arts Council England.

 

ArtWorks report and call for proposals

ArtWorks is a Paul Hamlyn Foundation special initiative which has spent four years exploring how policy makers, artists, funders, employers, commissioners and training providers can build on our rich tradition of participatory arts.

Read the findings from their five pathfinder projects, research commissioned by the programme and evaluation of the programme's activities in their new report ArtWorks: Reflections on developing practice in participatory settings. They have also published the ArtWorks Evaluation Report, an independent evaluation by DHA, and A view from funders.

ArtWorks have made 13 recommendations for changes issued to the whole sector which they believe now need to happen. To support the call for action and encourage take up of models tested through ArtWorks, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation have launched a call for proposals for projects seeking to apply and embed the learning from ArtWorks. 

 

CLA session at Hay Festival

Want to come and debate the pressing cultural learning questions of the day? Join us at the Hay Festival – Monday 25 May at 5pm. More details coming soon via our twitter feed.

 

Ahead for Culture: Championing Cultural Learning in Changing Times

The third annual Royal Opera House Bridge conference will take place on Friday 12 June at Royal Opera House, London. The theme for this year is Leadership: how can leaders at all levels, in all settings, make access to high quality arts and culture a genuine entitlement for all children and young people?

Join RoH for a day of inspirational speakers, challenging provocations, lively debate and practical workshops exploring this vital issue. Speakers include: Kirsty Wark; Camila Batmanghelidjh CBE; Professor Jonothan Neelands; Susan M Coles, Sir Anthony Seldon; Munira Mirza; Sir Nick Williams; Nii Sackey ... and many more.

Full details & Booking are here.