Memorandum submitted by The MAP Consortium

 

Summary:

 

CP as a driver for development of new teaching and learning methodology

CP as a driver for development of the cultural industries

CP as a research programme impacting on the use of creativity within business

CP as a driver for cross-cultural working

 

 

Introduction:

 

The MAP is a consortium of artists engaged in applying their practice into learning environments in education, the public sector, the cultural sector and business both in the UK and internationally.

 

 

Relevant information:

 

1) The MAP's experience of working in partnership with Creative Partnerships in London, Thames Gateway, Kent and with the National Office is that the programme has provided exceptional resources and guidance for creative practitioners and teachers to understand the value of and initiate work which is based around questions and the encouragement of independent learning. This work is connected both to the curriculum and the wider learning culture of schools. Our experience of delivering professional development training to around three hundred teachers and practitioners has evidenced a shift in their individual understanding of how creativity can benefit young people's learning, and a different understanding of what they are able to bring to teaching both individually and in partnership. The MAP believes this CP work has as a result effected some deep improvement in approach to learning and the curriculum: both in terms of stimulus, relationship to young people and their engagement with the curriculum, and outputs.

 

 

2) The MAP has considerable testimonial evidence that the training and experience that artists and other practitioners receive through creative partnerships consistently impacts on their approach to their work in terms of:

· Their ability to apply their work into learning contexts.

· An opening up of the possibilities for their own creative practice: i.e. in making new partnerships, incorporating CP methodologies into their own artistic process.

· Their ability to be entrepreneurial about applying their skills and creativity into other contexts e.g. public sector settings like hospitals, or corporate settings.

 

3) The research, development and delivery of CP programmes has contributed to the development of new methods of working with creativity that have found application in long and shorter term relationships within business. The MAP's work in this area has ranged from specific skills based work around communication and leadership to broader work looking at business cultures as spaces for learning and development. We have found that our engagement with CP and the creativity agenda has produced insight and methods we have used with businesses and organisations such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, Unilever, The Financial times, Prudential, Goldman Sachs, and Ogilvy. These businesses are increasingly engaged with the kind of approaches to people and cultural development that CP espouses.

 

 

4) Creative Partnerships' drive to raise aspirations in young people has led to work focused on building links between school communities and the outside world. A CP Thames Gateway conference "Cultures of learning" brought creative learning practitioners from around the world to talk with Essex teachers. As a result of this conference, The MAP now has a cross cultural programme in operation called The Art of Change, which works developing teacher/artist partnerships in Tokyo, New York, Mumbai, Barcelona and in the UK. The key international contacts on this programme were inspired by the CP model and were interested to develop similar partnerships and practice in their own cities and ultimately with each other. This is ongoing.

 

 

Recommendations:

 

5) The MAP recommends that the government continues to invest in young people, teachers and creative practitioners through the creative partnerships structures. It is necessary and useful to have a central body capturing and disseminating good practice and steering this live and growing approach to teaching and learning. Deeper partnership with the Dept for Children Families and Schools will help embed success so far into a wider schools community. It has already made so much impact in hoped for and unexpected ways - finding the resources to solidify and embed what has been learned would make a big difference to how much young people and teachers are engaged with learning. The radical development of creative practice in the cultural sector through CP should not be underestimated and the MAP would recommend that maintaining resources for this will produce results for the economy that are beyond what occurs in schools with young people.

 

July 2007