Welcome to Lead On – the newsletter from Clore Leadership, which seeks to explore, stimulate and share perspectives on the issues currently impacting the leadership of culture.
February is a short month, but often a pivotal one. Winter rolls into Spring (just!) with more daylight, the first crocuses, and early daffodils, forcing optimism through the murky soil, anticipating the arrival of Spring. And the renewal begins.
With the pause for school half-terms, this edition of Lead On spotlights cultural education, catching up with the multiple reviews, news and strategies from central government, and spotlighting some sector initiatives that speak to the core ambitions for cultural learning.
As recommended in last November’s Curriculum and Assessment Review, the much-criticised EBacc is featuring in school performance tables for the final time this month – a huge victory for tireless campaigners, although the long-term impact on the talent pipeline for arts workers and educators remains significant. The Hodge Review recommends deeper cross-departmental collaboration between DCMS and DfE; and the first National Youth Strategy in over 20 years, Youth Matters, acknowledges the importance of young people’s access to high-quality arts education, and the vital role of partnership-working to achieve this.
“The argument about value has been won for now but we cannot be complacent” writes Sally Bacon OBE, Co-chair of the Cultural Learning Alliance. “The next phase is the complex business of implementation and supporting government to realise their good intentions and keep on track. It is vital to maintain arts and cultural learning as a sector priority, and to keep up the public pressure which has proved so influential.”
For this cultural education edition, we asked Sally to scan the horizon and consider the priorities ahead. How might we, as cultural leaders, work together to galvanise positive change?
And while these policy developments sow the seeds for longer-term impact, an abundance of creative interventions capture the ambitions and aspirations for cultural education… Read on for insights, stories and interviews on this vital topic from Curious Minds, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Roundhouse and the Clore Duffield Foundation.
As Sally says, we cannot be complacent. Working together, we can do more to make this moment count.
Hilary Carty, Executive Director, Clore Leadership
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