Memorandum submitted by Paul Roberts, Chair, Creative and Cultural Education Advisory Board

 

I am writing in response to your call for submissions to the Inquiry into Creative Partnerships and the Curriculum. I do so as Chair of the Creative and Cultural Education Advisory Board.

 

In the summer of 2006 DCMS/DfES published in my name 'Nurturing Creativity in Young People' and then in the autumn 2006 a 'Government response to Paul Roberts' report on 'Nurturing Creativity in Young People'. I enclose copies of both documents.

 

Part of the government response was to establish the Creative and Cultural Education Advisory Board with 'the principal focus to construct a more coherent creativity and culture offer that builds strong connections between existing work and the emerging policy contexts'. The work of that Board is still in progress.

 

It is predicated on the core themes of my report as indication on the following two extracts:

 

1 There is a rich array of creativity work in pre- and main-school activity strongly, but not systematically, supported by the many creative programmes, projects and agencies.

 

The characteristics of the developing education policy context (autonomy, commissioning, personalisation) offer positive opportunities for the embedding of creativity in education.

 

Stronger connections between that creativity work and the emerging policy context in education and children's services would produce a "win-win" - creativity embedded in these developments and, reciprocally, these developments enhanced by the impact of creativity.

 

- This would provide a more secure, valued and cost-effective framework for the further development of creativity, both its own right and as a support for economic growth, with better outcomes for children and young people

- There is a need to construct a more coherent 'creativity offer' which is then actively managed/brokered into the new context of school and personal autonomy

 

2 Currently there is a commitment by Government to the Creative Economy and the pursuit of a cultural offer for young people. That offer is predicated on access for all. There is an undoubted richness and range in the current provision of programmes, projects and influences that originate from various agencies. But that very richness and range, while making for diverse, responsive and flexible provision, can produce barriers to effective impact. It can be difficult for schools to make and sustain the connections with provision that appears to them to be fragmented. This is of particular significance at a time when there is a policy to increase autonomy for schools. Schools need to be able to engage with a more visibly coherent provision so that the push from the creativity sector will be complemented by a pull on the creativity offer.

 

The increased autonomy of schools, the commissioning of services, the personalisation of learning, the increasing respect for the voice of children and young people, the freedoms and choices available through technology characterise a context in which it will no longer be adequate merely to offer or even to exhort in order to develop creativity in young people. The "push" approach will have limited impact at either a school or individual level. We must embed creativity in our systems so that schools, colleges and individuals "pull" on the opportunities, recognising the significance and benefits of creative experience, recognising that the development of imagination, purpose, originality and value will motivate pupils in their learning.

 

 

July 2007