St Marylebone has won a very exciting bid to lead the Arts Council’s Creativity Collaborative for London!
The Creativity Collaboratives programme emerged from the Durham Commission on Creativity and Education, a joint research collaboration between Durham University and Arts Council England, convened to look at the role creativity should play in the education of young people. £2,780,000 has been committed nationally to this three-year pilot by the Arts Council’s National Lottery Project Grants programme and Freelands Foundation.
In June this year, schools were invited to submit a bid to lead one of eight possible Creativity Collaboratives, spread out across the country, ensuring geographical and socio-economic reach. The St Marylebone CE School in Westminster is one of the eight successful schools nationally, following a rigorous application process in which we demonstrated our excellent record in creativity across the curriculum, development of teachers, successful outreach and collaboration, and overall vision for the promotion of creativity in education.
St Marylebone’s outstanding Performing and Visual Arts offer certainly makes a huge contribution to this – and this win was also based on how creativity plays a vital role in learning in all subjects and beyond the curriculum at the School. Creativity is as important in the Science lab as in the Dance studio, as vital in Geography as in Music. This aligns with the vision of the Arts Council and Durham Commission.
Winning this bid means St Marylebone will lead a network of schools across London to develop teaching for creativity, focussing on school culture, values and shared language. The London Creativity Collaborative network will include schools across all phases, including special education and 6th Form, and will tackle social and economic disadvantage, where creativity is needed most. The bid has secured approximately £320,000 of the available funding to enable this. Following St Marylebone’s success as a Teaching School and region-wide leadership as a Maths Hub, to now become a Creativity Collaborative is an exciting and fitting next step in St Marylebone’s creative and collaborative growth.
“This is a brilliant opportunity to put creativity at the heart of school culture, by developing the skills, experiences, confidence and courage of teachers and school leaders,” says St Marylebone Headteacher Kat Pugh. “Young people can do amazing things if their creativity is nurtured. Never before have they and their schools been in greater need of this opportunity and we are delighted to have been chosen to make it happen.”
Nicky Morgan, Director, Arts Council England says “I’m delighted to see the launch of the Creativity Collaboratives national network where we will work closely with teachers, their school networks and with the wider education sector to test approaches to teaching for creativity which all schools can adopt.
“This innovative work reflects Arts Council’s commitment to reach children and young people across the country and in all phases of education to nurture their individual curiosity and creative potential which we know has a crucial impact on improving their life chances.
“We want to highlight the professionalism and determination of teachers who work so hard to support and care for their students and look forward to sharing their work and the impact of the Creativity Collaboratives programme over the next three years.”
