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Memorandum submitted by The Arts Award
1. Executive Summary
In this paper we set out
our conviction in the value of the young people's Arts Award as a framework for
fostering and assessing creativity in young people. We will set out how the Arts Award provides answers in the
following areas raised in the remit of the select committee: We will show how the Arts Award:
· helps young people develop their creativity. · helps teachers and other practitioners support young people's creative development. · Provides a framework for collaboration between arts professionals and teachers. · recognises that all young people have the potential to be creative · makes effective links between young people's creativity in and out of school. · has risen to the challenge to develop meaningful ways of assessing creativity · is addressing the issue of suitable progression routes for creative young people
2. Parties to this submission
The Arts Award is run as a collaboration between Arts Council England and Trinity College London. This document has been prepared and submitted by the Arts Award national team which sits across both organisations.
3. Introduction
In this submission we will present the case that many of the answers to the questions before the Select Committee are, to a greater or lesser extent, provided by the young people's Arts Award. Ken Robinson defined creativity as activity which is a product of the imagination, original (or at least new to the person concerned) and which produces something of value. Paul Roberts later expanded this definition to include process rather than product; accepting that creative thought processes are as valuable as created products. The Arts Award meets the challenges of this agenda head on by making creativity one of the central criteria against which young people's work is assessed. This has necessitated the development of a clear understanding of:
· what creativity is · how it manifests itself in young people's work · how it can be reliably assessed
Although the Arts Award was only launched a year and a half ago it is already having an effect on the lives of young people and the work of the advisers who support them. Dramatic growth and positive feedback indicate that the Arts Award is a qualification which the arts world has been keenly awaiting. At last there is a framework within which young people, artists, youth professionals and teachers can work which gets beyond skills development to the real benefit of engagement with the arts: personal development, leadership, communication and most importantly creativity.
4. The young people's Arts Award
The Arts Award is a qualification accredited at Levels 1, 2 and 3 on the National Qualifications Framework which supports young people in their development as artists and arts leaders. It is designed for young people aged 11 - 25 and covers the full range of art forms, from performing arts through to visual arts, new media, film, literature, fashion, etc. Every young person works with a trained Arts Award adviser. Key to the Arts Award is that the young person is at the heart of the decision-making process, deciding on their field of work and setting their own goals. Further information about the early successes of the Arts Award is provided in Appendix 1[1].
5. Encouraging and supporting creativity in young people.
Young people are naturally creative - in one sense the best way the education system can support creativity in young people is by keeping out of the way. There is little doubt that the traditional examination system has had a stifling effect on young people's creativity. In a qualification where the parameters are all set by external forces, over which the young person has little or no influence, it is not hard to see that creativity will suffer. In this respect the Arts Award offers a very different approach. Young people choose the art form on which they wish to focus, they set themselves specific and realistic goals, they decide on the level of input they require from arts professionals. This is not to imply that the Arts Award is in any way a soft option - the assessment criteria are clear and appropriately demanding. However the structure of the Award offers a flexibility within which young people's creativity can thrive.
6. Helping professionals to support creativity
Every young person who takes an Arts Award works with an adviser who is trained by the Arts Award team. This training not only gives them advice about ways of supporting young people in their Arts Award work but also gives them the information and skills they need to make accurate assessments of young people's work. The 4,000 advisers who have been trained to date represent a large and growing group to have a clear understanding of how to foster and assess the development of creativity in young people. This group comprises a well-balanced cross section of arts practitioners and teachers, with about one third being school teachers, one third artists and one third youth and community workers. Although they work in very different environments they are united by an understanding of the best ways to nurture creativity.
7. Recognising creativity in all young people
Creativity is now acknowledged to be a vital part of young people's development and is often stated as being highly desirable by employers. However, the problems traditional assessment systems have with creativity (discussed above) mean that many highly imaginative and creative young people don't get any formal recognition for their skills. We are in danger of producing a generation of people who are expert exam takers and who can fulfil a set of stated requirements, but who are unable to think outside that box, and who are unable to bring creative solutions to the situations they face. Because the parameters of the Arts Award are so flexible it is possible for all young people, regardless of background, special need, or attainment level in other subjects, to get the same qualification. To illustrate this, there is no reason why Rose, who is a high achiever in all subjects at school and is doing her Arts Award on the flute, shouldn't get the same qualification as John, who has severe learning difficulties and communicates through an interpreter. These may be extreme examples but they illustrate that creativity and personal development through engagement with the arts are not necessarily linked to high achievement in other subjects.
8. Encouraging creativity in and out of school
The necessity to have flexible structures in order to facilitate creativity means that many young people engage more effectively with the creative process in informal environments. The aim of the Arts Award from the outset was that it should be a qualification of equal relevance to arts organisations, schools and the youth sector, and to date the take up has been split more or less evenly between these groups. Each has something to gain from the Arts Award structure - at the most basic level it could be argued that schools might benefit from the truly young person centred approach, whilst arts and youth organisations might benefit from a framework on which to hang their work. The structure also actively encourages links between schools and other organisations and there is a lot of evidence of schools working with artists of all kinds to help support young people's work.
9. Developing appropriate assessment methodologies
None of the high ideals held by the Arts Award can be met unless the assessment methodologies support the overall ethos of the qualification. Just as the young person makes the decisions about challenges, etc, so they also make the decision about the way in which they present evidence of their achievements. The Arts Award is not a qualification in written English, and there is no expectation that young people will produce anything written unless they choose to. Every young person, at each level of Award, produces a portfolio which contains evidence of the work they have done. They are encouraged to present this portfolio in a way which communicates best their engagement with, and development through, their chosen art form. This might be through ICT, DVD, a website, audio recording, etc. Some young people with special needs might use a scribe. This is a vital aspect of encouraging creativity - the reporting of the creative process is inextricably linked to the creative process itself. For example, a young person might be able to talk in an inspirational way about their experience of dance, but if asked to write about it might produce a stilted and limited report.
The assessment process of the Arts Award is that the initial assessment is made by the adviser, which is then moderated by one of a national team of moderators. This is part of the process of empowering arts professionals.
10. The impact of creative development
Back in the summer of 2006 the first group of young people took their Arts Award. They were a group of young offenders and for several of them the Arts Award is the only accredited qualification they have achieved to date. Whilst it is too early to make any generalisations about the positive effect of the Arts Award, informal evidence and initial tracking suggests that the Arts Award can have a transforming effect on young people's lives - perhaps especially on those struggling to find their place in the world. The Arts Award has the capacity to allow young people to surprise themselves - many have a whole raft of skills which have never been recognised formally in the past. A common statement from young people who have just passed their Arts Award is "I'm going to do my ... Award now". It is reasonable to hope that young people on the fringes of the education system may be attracted back into the mainstream by the kudos that the Arts Award gives them. Early indications from the Plus summer colleges programme are that the Arts Award may be having an impact on re-offending rates.
The Arts Award is not just about hard-to-reach young people however. It is a mainstream qualification, taken by young people from all backgrounds and with the widest range of abilities, all of whom are linked by their capacity for creativity.
11. Progression Routes
At present some young people who engage with the Arts Award have aspirations of a career in the creative industries, but of course many do not. Longer term as the Award develops it will be interesting to track the future pathways of Arts Award achievers. There has already been a suggestion of a "Platinum" Award at Level 4 in the NQF which might be a stepping stone to a career.
At the opposite ends there is clearly a need to encourage creativity in primary schools and there has been some discussion of what a junior award might look like, and whether it is a qualification or rather a framework for creative development.
12. Summary
The arts do not have a monopoly on creativity, but arguably they are the area where activity becomes pointless unless creativity is present. Clearly we all hope and expect that teachers of maths, science, languages, etc., will teach creatively and will encourage their students to be creative mathematicians, scientists and linguists. To this extent creative maths teaching is synonymous with good maths teaching.
Perhaps where the arts differ is that the business of artists is creativity itself, and increasingly young people's development is being supported by collaborations between artists and teachers. If they are to work effectively to support young people there must be a clearly understood framework within which creative development can be supported, and perhaps even more importantly, assessed.
July 2007
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