Creativity should be integral to the classroom – we must fight to protect it
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Version 1 of 2. Readers respond to an editorial calling for improved arts education in all schools, rather than a fortunate few Your editorial (20 March) rightly calls for more creativity in classrooms. But this isn’t about the odd workshop or end-of-term show. It’s about giving creative thinking real status in schools – and that starts with artists being taken seriously. Until recently, I was the artistic director at Theatre Centre – an organisation that’s spent more than seven decades putting artists at the heart of education. We’ve seen the impact when artists are embedded, not parachuted in. In one recent residency, the artist became part of the everyday life of a school science department – co-creating with students, feeding into staff meetings, even rethinking how assemblies were run. Teachers felt re-energised. Students grew in confidence. School culture shifted. But this sort of work needs to be long term and strategic. I’m also a school governor, so I know firsthand that creativity needs to be advocated for at the highest level. The arts teach essential skills: curiosity, critical thinking, the ability to collaborate and navigate uncertainty. Theatre Centre’s mission to embed creativity at the centre of education continues. And with the right backing, it’s something we can scale.Rob WattBurgess Hill, West Sussex Between 2007 and 2023, GCSE music entries nearly halved. The decline was even steeper at A-level, which, research predicts, will disappear from state schools by 2033. Even today, a vastly disproportionate number of A-level candidates are privately educated. Similar trends regarding the number of children learning and playing musical instruments have been reported by the ABRSM exam board. This loss of music is a tragedy. Researchers such as Prof Daisy Fancourt at University College London have demonstrated the remarkable developmental benefits of music. Evidence also indicates its ability to improve children’s emotional and behavioural regulation. With a mental health crisis in our schools, music should be a significant part of our response. The wealth of bands, orchestras, concerts and gigs we see today isn’t a predictor of our musical future, it’s a reflection of our educational past. We may be sleepwalking towards a future in which we fall below the critical mass of musicians and teachers needed to sustain a musical culture – from pub bands to primary school nativities to Oscar-winning films.Dr Julian LeeksDirector, Sound World I was fortunate enough to attend an independent secondary school with significant bursarial support. The school was academically high-achieving, with skilled and passionate teachers, but I feel fortunate to have attended it chiefly because of the extracurricular opportunities. Many of these were artistic – from jazz bands and orchestras to theatre productions and musicals with budgets of tens of thousands of pounds. Those lunchtime and after-school clubs were the highlight of my school day. Now, more than a decade later, they are still what I remember most fondly and recognise as being privileged. This privilege was hammered home in the year I spent working with children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) at a mainstream state school. Opportunities for them to be creative or experience the arts were few and far between. They also took place almost entirely outside regular school hours, deeming them effectively inaccessible. With hindsight, I realised that my school’s academic success and educational independence had enabled it to integrate the arts into every aspect of school life in a way that other schools are not free to do. If only they were. When the Send pupils I worked with were given rare opportunities to be creative, they often excelled, far exceeding the low expectations teachers had for them.Bramwell BlowerCumnor, Oxfordshire |