Report calls for ‘arts premium’ for schools

A major new report on how school pupils engage with the arts has called for ring-fenced Government funding to ensure all children in primary and secondary schools have access to an “arts-rich” education.

The report identifies the key elements an ‘arts-rich’ school, saying that students in these:

• Have access to arts and cultural education, whatever their background
• Are given opportunities to exhibit and perform work for wider audiences, and have their individual cultures valued by teachers
• Are actively supported by the school’s leadership, which makes the arts integral to the school’s identity, ensures sufficient curriculum is allocated to arts subjects and sustains one or more partnerships with local or national arts organisation.

The report makes five recommendations for change. These include encouragements for all secondary schools to offer a full range of arts subjects at GCSE and for both acknowledgement and financial reward for teachers who become ‘arts brokers’. These would act as role models for students by committing to learning about arts and culture themselves and sharing knowledge and experience with them.
The report also urges Russell Group universities to review their approach to facilitating subjects – those identified as providing young people with the most chance of getting into universities, and which do not include the arts – as well as calling for an ‘arts and culture premium’, modelled on the current £320m ring-fenced for sports in primary schools.

For more go to: Tale Project