"From the teachers’ perspective Student Theatre Goers was a wonderful scheme. If it were rolled out across year groups, the schools and their students would benefit immensely”
Arts Inform specialises in work-related learning – projects in which employers in the cultural industries are working in partnership with education to support the curriculum and in which students are undertaking real life tasks, using hands-on skills, which give them direct experience of working in the arts.
This might involve design and technology students working with an architects’ practice to design a new building; it could equally be a gallery inviting Creative and Media Diploma students to create a marketing campaign to bring a new exhibition to younger audiences.
All students in English schools are entitled to experience work-related learning between the ages of 14 and 16 at Key Stage 4. The Government’s definition includes work experience, learning about work through vocational courses and careers education, and developing skills for employability. Links between employers and schools are crucial in making this possible. It is also important to ensure that arts organisations play their part.
Arts Inform is renowned for developing new models of working in arts education and rigorous testing and evaluation. Over the last four years, for example, several projects have involved us in researching how the employer engagement component of the new Creative and Media Diploma can be achieved. Some projects are initiated by Arts Inform, while others are commissioned by agencies such as Arts Council England and the Sector Skills Councils. We also undertake consultancy work such as research, feasibility studies and evaluations for arts organisations. Everything that Arts Inform does involves both arts and education partners in some way, and encompasses a wide variety of artforms and creative disciplines.
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