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The changing role of the artist practitioner

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The changing role of the artist practitioner

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Arts Connect and the RSA

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Artist Practioner Roles RSA blog post.docx

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Rachel Gartside, Education Associate Practitioner, RSC

I think my role is to offer appropriate inspiration for change. That might be in the form of encouraging colleagues to take risks in the approaches they are working with, or thinking differently about learning outcomes, or modelling different teaching and learning relationships or making connections between this programme and other strategic initiatives

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The role of the Artist Practitioner RSC.IVE blog post.docx

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from Stuart Greig, class teacher from Invergarven School, South Ayrshire working with Live Music Now Scotland

'It's been life-changing - it's completely changed my teaching practice. I can't envisage ever going back'

Find out more in the above film taken from our annual TDF

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To help in your thinking around inequity, take a look at this short post.

For more information on PHF's definition of inequity, barriers to learning and disadvantage, please read the TDF FAQs

https://www.phf.org.uk/funding/faqs-teacher-development-fund#heading-32731

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Answers to common questions about our Teacher Development Fund.

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TDF is open to all state-funded primary settings. Read the posts below and take a look at the FAQs

https://www.phf.org.uk/funding/faqs-teacher-development-fund#heading-32711

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Answers to common questions about our Teacher Development Fund.

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Explore TDF via the lens of a teacher, a senior leader and two arts practitioners.

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Watch these short films and take inspiration from colleagues along the way in their TDF journey.

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Covering everything from professional learning design to blended approaches, evaluation requirements to definitions of inequity and more, the FAQs are a must-read before you begin an application

https://bit.ly/4dVNYl7

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Answers to common questions about our Teacher Development Fund.

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This post, written by TDF Advisory Board member Hannah Tyreman (Nov23) following an equity and anti-racism learning event for grantees, reflects on the discussions and provides guidance for organisations/schools in considering their next steps.

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Earlier this week, I chaired a panel for one of Paul Hamlyn Foundation's Teacher Development Fund (TDF) cohorts, all of whom are working on primary arts practice teacher development projects. One of the central strands of their work is to address inequities for children and build anti-racist practices into the heart of their projects.

Having previously heard from a range of experts to better understand the nature of educational inequities and some of the possible components of anti-racist practice, participants arrived to hear from one headteacher, an arts organisation lead, and an artist sharing their journeys with this work.

Once we begin to explore inequities in society, and more specifically in education, we will find it located everywhere. This can lead to a sense of overwhelm. It can seem impossible for the system to be changed from within. When there's a sense of powerlessness, any attempt towards change can feel hopeless. So, we ask, where to begin?

These starting points are based on themes that emerged during the panel discussion, and my own novice learning and experiences, and are therefore far from exhaustive. Rather, these are a myriad of possibilities to demonstrate the agency we have to strive toward change.

Learn

Structural inequities must first be understood before they can be dismantled. For those of us educated as part of the UK system, and inhabiting it, there will be a great deal of unlearning to be done and a number of possible places to begin.

Seek to understand the inequities being faced by the contexts in which you're working. Avoiding assumptions here is important. What is the nature of the challenges being faced in your school contexts? You may begin by discussing what you think these are but it will be important to check the accuracy of your perceptions by exploring available data and speaking with individuals. Connect with the schools, the local authorities, and other public services in the local area to explore their available data. Compare locally published data with that available nationally. Data can challenge our perception of what we think is happening. Gather already published, or obtain new, children, family, teacher, and artist voices. Once you've gathered your data and voices, consider whether its gathering was trustworthy, ethical, and reliable. If you're gathering data for the first time, especially people's voices then seek to ensure its gathering is ethical. If there are things the data doesn't tell you, determine how you might begin to find these things out. The data may begin to point towards areas of priority and places to begin.

What lived experiences are you missing? Consider the intersecting characteristics that might affect how someone experiences life that you don't experience. Seek to learn from these perspectives in a rich, rather than singular way by speaking to several people with intersecting identities, reading, listening to, or watching several people's accounts of life. It's important that the stories you engage with reflect the highs, lows and in-betweens of life, and represent the vast range of people with different lived experiences to you. Create the space to reflect on what these experiences and stories might mean for your practice. It's important to adequately reimburse individuals you seek the direct expertise or guidance of in this work.

What are the gaps or misunderstandings in your own learning? This can be challenging to address since those gaps can remain invisible to us until we encounter something that reveals them. Begin with the histories of structural inequities to understand what needs to be dismantled. Learn widely, explore subjects of which you have had little to no exposure to or interaction with before now. Connect with expert organisations and individuals sharing reliable information. Discuss your learning with the teachers and artists in your project so that you reach mutual understanding that this learning is central to your work. Wherever you're able, involve school senior leaders since they have some power to help you address the systemic influences on your work.

How are inequities reinforced in your curriculum design and resource choices? Whose lived experiences are absent or quietened? How do the gaps in your own learning lead to gaps in learning for the children you work with? You'll begin to partially answer these questions by beginning to answer the previous questions. You may additionally find it useful to conduct an audit of your curriculum resources: Whose stories are represented? Whose are marginalised? What affects the design choices we make? Where do we have agency to influence these choices? What lens primarily directs our decisions? How might we begin to shift this lens?

Possible starting points for your learning

BAMEed Network resources database can be a source of learning in different formats.

National Society for Education in Art and Design (NSEAD)'s Anti-Racist Art Education Resources include sets of 'questions to encourage anti-racist conversations, prompt discussion, and support the decolonisation of your curriculum and projects.'

Explore the blog from Dr Muna Abdi and colleagues including articles on social justice, safe spaces, and the importance of language.
Join seminars from the Centre for Race, Education and Decoloniality at Leeds Beckett University
Explore the glossary of DEI terms from Diverse Educators so that terminology doesn't remain a barrier to this work and see this language guide from Milton Keynes College as an example of how language might be made more inclusive.

Explore these decolonising the curriculum collections: a reading list and a list of resources.

Explore Wellcome's anti-racist principles and toolkit and consider how these principles might support your own ways of working.

This is far from an exhaustive list... what might you discover?

Connect

All of the speakers on the panel spoke of the ways in which their work had required community to support them in starting, to direct their activity in meaningful ways, and to motivate them to maintain momentum in the long-term.

In a learning journey of this nature, there will be failures, challenges, and much unlearning and relearning to be done. This can be supported by community providing essential expertise, robust challenge, and a culture of care.

This community may include individual experts you reach out to, organisations you connect with, and specialist networks you join along with the working community that already surrounds you. There can be advantages to having both physical and online communities, local, national and international influences where the work may take different forms and priorities. Such a community can be built over time and will require investment of time, energy, and in some cases payment. It's important to adequately reimburse individuals you seek the direct expertise or guidance of in this work.

Possible starting points for your community formation

Research and connect with leaders, academics, teachers, colleagues, and young people engaged in this work. You may start this community locally to begin with.

Anti-racist Cumbria, who was a central part of Kirsty Cooper's supportive and guiding community.

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion directory from the BAMEed Network lists organisations and individuals with expertise of work in this space that you could connect with and learn from, as does this directory from Diverse Educators.

BAMEed Network regional networks can connect you with educators working in your area and support you with understanding and addressing local challenges.

This is far from an exhaustive list... who might you discover?

Begin

I think that finding the strength to begin this work can be daunting given all the ways in which you will inevitably get it wrong. I think the joy and hope of this work can be challenging to sustain.

Learning and community are important for injecting inspiration, and motivation to keep going. Locating rest and care is vital to sustaining energy for the work. I've personally found that poetic words can offer an anchor of purpose to return to.

In their book 'Where to begin', Cleo Wade encourages the reader to 'remain hopeful and harness' their 'personal power to bring positive change into our world.' In the opening pages, she writes,

'The world will say to you: what are you going to do?... When the world asks big questions that require big answers, we have two options: One. To feel so overwhelmed or unqualified we do nothing. Two. To begin. To start with one small act and qualify ourselves... We find ourselves saying to the world, "What do we do?" "What can we do?" The better question might be, "How am I showing up?"... You don't have to wait around wondering what you should do. Get to work on what you can do... Start by doing what you can with what you've got. where you are, and in your own way.'

Seek out the art that can help to fuel and sustain your energy for this journey.

Explore one of our panellist, Tyreis Holder's, poetry and artwork here.

Learn more about the social justice and arts learning in schools work from Michelle McGrath and colleagues at Bow Arts here.
Letter of encouragement, Danielle Coke Finding our starting roles, Danielle Coke
I wonder, where will you begin?

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November 2023. As a member of Paul Hamlyn Foundation's Teacher Development Fund advisory group, I chaired a panel on equity and anti-racism in education and recorded some reflections on possible next steps for participants.

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Please scroll across to find out more about the TDF including how to apply

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Please scroll across to find out more about the TDF including how to apply

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Plus partnerships led by an arts organisation

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Plus partnerships led by an arts organisation

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Read about a literacy-based programme led by Grimm and Co working in schools within the Astrea MAT

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Published: 16 November 2022

Gem Thornton, Creative Learning Manager from Grimm & Co, reflects on their Teacher Development Fund learning journey alongside ten Astrea Trust primary schools in Rotherham, Doncaster and Sheffield. Their project, Chapter & Verse, aimed to support teachers to develop and embed multi-disciplinary arts approaches to teaching and learning, including immersive drama, music, poetry and storytelling.

In October, I was asked to speak at the Cohort 5 Learning Session to present key findings and the impact of the Chapter & Verse project over the last two years. In all honesty, it was strange to experience an in-person event and a buzz of excitement was in the atmosphere, surrounding participants as they began their TDF journey.

During the presentation, I highlighted Grimm & Co's signature pedagogy, how we champion the writer in every child; the child is the expert, and we aim to build the capacity of those who have influence over children and young people. It is this last statement that drew us, as an arts organisation, to Paul Hamlyn's Teacher Development Fund and our collaboration with Astrea Academy Trust.

I worked closely with Hannah Baker, the Primary Literacy Lead at Astrea Academy Trust (whose blog post can be found here) to create a toolkit that aimed to empower teachers to explore creative courage in the classroom. The toolkit, used by both the teacher and artist together, explored unthinking and reimagining techniques to reinvigorate the learning journey.

The Chapter & Verse project aimed to explore how Grimm & Co's approach enhanced learning and supported teacher experimentation and creativity. From the very beginning, we made it clear to the 15 teachers we worked with that this was a 50/50 project, this was not something that was going to be done to the teachers, but rather an invitation to play alongside the artist and learn from each other using a peer mentoring structure.

Chapter & Verse applied the toolkit to two texts: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, and The Iron Man by Ted Hughes, and we delivered this to Year 4 pupils over six weeks in eight schools over the two years, reaching 499 pupils in total. At this point in the presentation, it was important for participants to experience an activity from the toolkit and just at that moment, who should call and interrupt me but Mr Tumnus himself. It turned out that Aslan had done a runner and there needed to be a new protector of Narnia. Luckily, I was in a room filled with educators and creative practitioners, so I turned to them and a variety of small, plastic animals to help. They became the animal's campaign manager and were required to write a persuasive speech. This is just one example of unthinking that could be applied in the classroom. The way all participants enthusiastically jumped at the task was super inspiring, and I am a firm believer that you should not ask a child to do something you would not attempt yourself.

The impact of Chapter & Verse is evident in the pupils' desire and confidence to write and an excitement and enthusiasm for Literacy, which was missing before. Teachers have expressed how the Grimm & Co approaches have re-inspired their practice and how incorporating creative play in the classroom builds stronger relationships between themselves and the pupils.

Not only that, but artists have also expanded their own knowledge - thanks to the teachers' expertise - and can now apply their artistic work more effectively in a National Curriculum environment.

To conclude, I thoroughly enjoyed meeting representatives from the Cohort 5 organisations, and I hope I was able to highlight what could be achieved in schools with an opportunity such as this. Participants showed passion, enthusiasm and were invested in supporting children and young people. It was inspiring to observe them galvanising and shaping what is to come.

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Gemma Thornton Head of Learning and Impact for Grimm & Co

As the new school year kicks off, Hannah Baker, Primary Literacy Lead for Astrea Academy Trust, highlights the vital role the arts can play in developing creativity in teaching and learning, igniting the imaginations of teachers and pupils and re-connecting school communities in the face of the challenges posed by the pandemic.

As we quickly approach the three year anniversary of Covid's onset, Paul Reeve, CEO of Into Film and TDF Advisory Group Member, reflects on the pandemic's ongoing impact and how its long tail is affecting the arts and education sectors.

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Gem Thornton, Creative Learning Manager from Grimm & Co, reflects on their Teacher Development Fund learning journey alongside ten Astrea Trust primary...

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to MATs, Teaching School Hubs and other constituted partnerships and alliances

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to MATs, Teaching School Hubs and other constituted partnerships and alliances

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Helen Ackrill, Director of Staff Development for the Keystone Academy Trust, offers insight into their professional learning programme which focuses on using music and drama to support oracy and writing across the curriculum – with support from the Teacher Development Fund.

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Creativity Hive Project - Steps to Embedding

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Helen Ackrill, Director of Staff Development for the Keystone Academy Trust, offers insight into their professional learning programme which focuses on…

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Professor Tanya Ovenden-Hope, Provost and Professor of Education at Plymouth Marjon University and Teacher Development Fund Advisory Board Member, shares some of her research into ‘educationally isolated’ schools and explores the impact of TDF within such settings

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The power of arts-based CPDL for ‘educationally isolated’ schools

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Professor Tanya Ovenden-Hope, Provost and Professor of Education at Plymouth Marjon University and Advisory Board Member for our Teacher Development Fund…

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from Sarah Waterfield, Headteacher of Arden Grove Infant and Nursery School, in partnership with Norwich Theatre Royal

Our TDF is now woven across our curriculum. It aligns perfectly with our Trust’s strategic aims, supporting Mental Health & Wellbeing; Learning & Achievement; Careers & Life Skills. It is not an addition...it is simply a tool we use to engage our children across all curriculum areas"

Read more in the above post.

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Published: 15 November 2023

Headteacher of Arden Grove Infant and Nursery School, Sarah Waterfield, tells us about the steps she took to ensure that their Teacher Development Fund programme has a long and lasting legacy within her school.

In Round 4 of the Teacher Development Fund, Norwich Theatre Royal partnered with eight schools in the Wensum Trust to collaborate on a programme that harnessed the power of story-sharing to support the development of literacy and executive function skills.
Wise About Words (WAW), three small words that shaped a project between Wensum Trust's infant and primary schools and Norwich Theatre Royal. Two years later, the impact on the teachers' professional development and learning has been immense and so much more than we anticipated.

At our school, it started with a small group of excited teachers, who despite their nerves for the first WAW training day at the theatre, returned newly enthused and ready to set the world alight in their literacy lessons.

Over time, we became aware that children in those classes were not only more engaged, but we were seeing a more positive approach to writing, which was the primary focus of the programme.

Getting involved in the practice

The theatre also offered optional twilight training sessions, which my enthusiastic deputy convinced his rather nervous headteacher to attend with him. I am glad I did. It helped me understand my own and others' possible worries resulting from our early experiences of drama, or indeed the dreaded​'role play'. I learned ways to overcome these worries and grew to love the sessions, enthused by the ways immersive techniques support learning and make learning fun!

Iterative development of the programme

In the second year, we realised WAW was not just about literacy but that it was also about developing children's skills in the broader sense. Why wouldn't a child be irresistibly engaged by freeze-framing religious or historical events? Using emotion chairs to imagine how historical or fictional characters may have felt? Or working together to​'become' bridges as a way to understand construction? We realised we were tapping into children's communication skills, creativity, empathy, confidence, problem-solving, turn-taking and teamwork skills whilst we covered our curriculum. All those skills and probably more accessed in one, 15-minute drama input!

These skills are life skills, vital for our children to become adults in the world. As adults, we need to have the confidence, knowledge and words to articulate children's skills and strengths and maybe, most importantly, like the person they are or the person they are becoming.

We want children to have the emotional language and tools to enable them to form healthy relationships at home and work; be resilient, resourceful, empathetic, kind, and make a positive difference to the world they live in. WAW has enabled us to see our children's capabilities, understand how we can develop the skills to better engage them and reflect on how the techniques can be adapted in many ways.

We have forged wonderful relationships with Norwich Theatre Royal and our artist, Sarah, and our ongoing collaboration supports us now and as we continue to develop as a team. We work together to explore the potential of how WAW is more than wise words but how it helps us develop key Executive Functions of self-control, mental flexibility and working memory in our young children. We know these are prerequisites for any learning and a better predictor of outcomes.

Two years later, WAW is woven across our curriculum provision. It aligns perfectly with our Trust's strategic aims, supporting Mental Health & Wellbeing; Learning & Achievement; Careers & Life Skills. It is not an addition, or something extra. It is simply a tool we use to engage our children across all curriculum areas. All aspects of our development plan sit in harmony with WAW techniques. It has revitalised our curiosity and reflection about how we deliver learning to our infant-aged children. Most importantly, it has provided us with alternative approaches to better include children who learn in different ways - our many neurodivergent learners. We stand by our ethos that we are a​'Learning for All' school.

This year our new focus is to develop the confidence of TAs to use immersive learning and increase their knowledge about how it develops our children. Looking ahead, we will consider the potential impact the work between the theatre and our schools can have on the social, emotional and academic outcomes for all our children. From our current experience, that potential is very exciting!

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Sarah Waterfield Headteacher of Arden Grove Infant and Nursery School

As Travelling Light Theatre Company's Teacher Development Fund programme enters its final months, programme lead Lizzy Stephens reflects on the learning to date and shares the company's plans to embed the work across the participating schools.

Johanne Clifton, Teacher Development Fund Advisory Group Member and Director of Curriculum and Development for the Elliot Foundation Multi-Academy Trust, considers how senior leaders can develop a long-term strategic position around staff development, the arts and their vision for education.

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Headteacher of Arden Grove Infant and Nursery School, Sarah Waterfield, tells us about the steps she took to ensure that their Teacher Development Fund...

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Travelling Light Theatre Company (Round 4) showcasing the powerful impact their TDF has had on a group of schools in and around Bristol

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Film, posts and other content showcasing the TDF journey of Akram Khan Company with schools from Tower Hamlets in the Moving Stories programme. (TDF Round 5)

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Akram Khan Company - Moving Stories: The Teacher Training Programme

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Learn more about the development of the fund

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Learn more about the development of the fund

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Catherine Sutton, Head of Programme – Education for Paul Hamlyn Foundation, reflects on how the Teacher Development Fund has evolved over the last eight years — to shift and adapt to the concerns and needs of the sector.