enquire: inspiring learning in galleries 02
Outcomes, legacies, implications
Outcomes and legacies
enquire has led to a greater understanding of the learning benefits to children and young
people of working with galleries and artists and engaging with contemporary art, and the
conditions that enable that learning. This has been of particular value to those gallery
educators, teachers, youth leaders and artists who have had the opportunity to work
collaboratively and reflect jointly on their work through enquire. However, there are other
programmes that have also made this kind of professional development possible,
including envision, developing youth friendly galleries (14), and Watch this Space, a
programme of placements for gallery educators and teachers (15). Also, the people
involved in this work – the gallery educators, artists, teachers and youth workers - are
distinctive for their commitment to art and to enabling young people to develop
independently and creatively, and consequently to reviewing and developing their
practice.
The enquire research findings are a valuable resource and are being disseminated to
the gallery and education sectors through this and associated publications, events and
CPD opportunities so that they can inform future policy development and lead to
increasingly effective practice. However, the research findings are by no means the only
outcome or legacy of enquire. Since 2004 ten clusters across different regions of
England, involving thirty-nine galleries, numerous schools, teachers, youth leaders and
artists have worked on the programme. Both working as a ‘cluster’ in a particular region
and planning and delivering projects through close partnerships has made a significant
impact on those involved and has left important legacies.
Children and young people
First, there has been a lasting impact on many of the participating children and young
people. Participating in the programme has opened up new opportunities and helped to
develop valuable life skills. Most have become more comfortable about visiting cultural
institutions and confident about participating in activities, and have gained appropriate
social skills. Many have acquired qualifications – such as an Arts Award - have changed
their plans for further education or a career, have gained places to study at college or
university, have become closely involved in and are influencing the policy and running of
galleries, or have started volunteering or working in galleries.
I think that’s one of the big things to come out of it for me. There’s no way I’d have got
the job (working in the gallery) if I hadn’t been there …. It seems it’s maybe a job aimed
at people older than me. Not that I’m not capable of doing it. But I only got it because I
could show I was committed. Young person
The project has helped me develop team work skills, working to deadlines, working with
professionals. It has developed existing skills and I have taken a more active role in
planning future things. Young person
Teachers
enquire has provided considerable non-formal professional development for teachers
through working in partnership with gallery educators, with artists and through joint
reflection and research. This will inform their teaching in future:
I actually think just even the discussions, the relaxed discussion we have with the artist,
and with other teachers, we’ve learnt a lot from each other, and certainly a lot from the
artists, but apart from ideas, it sparks ideas off. Teacher
Well my film is very – I'm hoping it’s very child orientated, I want to use it as a hook to
make the children be interested in the project, and it’s based round football, ‘cause sport
is a very popular subject in our school, the boys are very keen on football…...So that
was my purpose, that’s my reason for doing it…I would have loved to have done
something more personal, but that'll have to wait, because I want to learn the skills and
take the skills back to school. Teacher
The networks that have developed between teachers and schools, and with cultural
institutions and artists, will also influence and support the teachers’ work in future. These
networks can be particularly valuable in rural areas:
You find out what's going on, because we are a bit out on a limb up here in Berwick
aren’t we? So it is good to know what's going on, Newcastle, up here and all over I
guess. Teacher
Some teachers have also learnt new skills, particularly in digital media, as with this
Middle School teacher taking part in a CPD project in Northumberland:
I'm a feeder school to the High School, and I can give my children a taste of filmmaking,
photography and hopefully some sound. And I'm certainly going to work across the
curriculum with their teachers as well, in Year 8…I'm going to do English, we’re going to
do play scripts and videoing…
And certainly at our school, I mean ICT is very high on the agenda, and we’re supposed
to cover it in all of the subjects, and it’s a way of broadening my vision of how it can be
brought into art. And bits of it fed into what I do already, but long term to do some kind of
stand alone film/video/whatever – project.
Schools
There have also been legacies among schools including Brixham College, where, as a
result of working with the Lighthouse Visual Arts Centre, there is increased support
amongst teachers and senior management for working with the gallery and with artists.
The College has written into its self-development plan (SDP) that it wants at least thirty
students to participate in local contemporary art gallery visits (to include a workshop with
an artist educator) every year. The College is also programming more cross-curricular
artist-led projects as a direct result of the success of the enquire project – and has
allocated money to make this a reality.
Artists
The research reveals the particular role of artists, their status as independent people
working in the ‘real’ world, how their pedagogies enable children and young people to
develop their own ideas and opinions, and their skills complement those of teachers.
Working partnerships between artists and teachers and more formal training has
increased understanding about their respective roles and how they can work together to
great effect.
Artists have been introduced to galleries, museums and staff that they had not worked
with before, extending their networks and possibilities for future projects. The
programme has also provided considerable non-formal training for artists which they will
use throughout their careers.
Through formal and non-formal CPD artists have learnt:
about schools and the curriculum from working with teachers and in schools
about planning projects from working alongside gallery educators
about research, educational theory and pedagogy
And some of the artists have reported that working on the projects has helped to focus
their own practice and also built on their experience of working with different age and
ability groups of young people, helping them to make more informed decisions for the
future:
Yeah, so generally, in fact most of the time, you go into a class and say you're given
eight to fifteen kids and you go off and work separately to the rest of the classroom. But
actually, working with the teachers more closely, and thinking well actually, what they will
get out of it and what I will get out of it and the kids will get out of it will be a better, more
rounded experience. Artist
Artists have also valued working with each other, particularly:
finding out about each other’s practice and how it relates to the projects they
develop,
learning from each other’s delivery of the sessions (especially where artists
working on the same project were working in different media),
having other people to develop ideas with and being stretched.
And enquire has enabled many artists to have a bigger ‘voice’ within the partnerships.
Galleries and gallery educators
Participating galleries and gallery educators have seen significant developments in their
capacity to deliver increasingly effective work. Several gallery educators have moved to
more responsible posts in larger organisations – partly as a result of taking part in
enquire. They have not only furthered their own careers but have taken with them
contacts and valuable experience that benefits their new situation. Similarly, new
education staff taking up posts in participating galleries have been able to slot into the
supportive network of a cluster and carry forward more ambitious partnerships and
programmes.
Galleries have developed new methods for evaluation as a result of taking part in
collaborative research projects, including more creative and inclusive ways of eliciting
views from young people.
In institutional terms, as a result of the success of its enquire project, Quay Arts, which
joined the South East cluster in Autumn 2007, is applying for funding to establish an
education post.
The Sainsbury Centre has seen important cultural change. The Director is very
impressed by work undertaken with a group of self-directed young people through
enquire, and by their keen involvement in the gallery. Consequently, there is now
commitment to an annual ‘en-titled’ exhibition, to be curated by and showcasing work by
young people.
The learning from enquire has fed directly into the De La Warr Pavilion’s new
programme of work, funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, which includes a new
model for planning and evaluation and an action learning set with gallery educators,
artists and teachers.
Regional partnerships and networks
Both working as clusters and the projects themselves have led to strong and effective
regional partnerships and networks that will enable further work between galleries and
schools, and impact positively on the learning experiences of young people in future.
Groups of galleries are joining together to promote their work to schools. In Devon,
enquire has helped the galleries see their strengths and what they can offer jointly to
schools and youth groups. This has led to the production of a regular e-bulletin and
coordinated advocacy for all the venues and programmes across the South West, as
well as working together on projects and workshops. Spacex, CCANW and Phoenix
have started to produce joint marketing to schools, and are collaborating on a
‘contemporary art tour’, a three-art-venues-in-one-day bus tour for secondary schools
being piloted in Summer 2008.
In recognition of the value of the cluster model and the benefits of peer networking the
South East cluster has been formally constituted as an unincorporated association to be
known as the South East Gallery Educators Network. Galleries that joined the South
East cluster in phase 2, on the Isle of Wight, in Portsmouth and Southampton, are
forming a new cluster to work on enquire phase 3, with support from members of the
original network.
During 2007-8 ISIS worked with artists and teachers from schools in and around Berwick
to develop skills in new media and carry out projects with their pupils. The teachers
formed practical partnerships with other schools – including between feeder middle and
upper schools – and with visual arts organisations. The local Arts Development Officer
joined the steering group. Work made through the projects was exhibited at the
Gymnasium Gallery in Berwick and the Berwick Film Festival has agreed to a screening
specifically for the young people’s work as part of the mini film and media festival.
One thing that I have found is that I've made contacts, I've learnt about equipment, even
just asking where to buy that paper, and one of my colleagues is getting me a lead, and
the chap from the Gymnasium Gallery came in - that's another name, another contact,
so it’s really - networking has been very useful actually. Teacher
These are examples of sound legacies that will support and enable the implementation
of the policies outlined in the contextual section Art Education in England; the new
secondary curriculum with its emphasis on personalisation, cross-curricular working and
developing young people’s life skills and creativity; the Diploma in Creative and Media
and the need for real projects and placements in creative organisations; and the Cultural
Offer and its promise of five hours of culture each week for every young person in the
country.
Implications
This report is being published at an exciting and challenging time, when enquire and
other research is consistently evidencing the learning benefits of gallery education to
children and young people, and the value of galleries and other cultural institutions in
extending experience and the learning provided in schools is recognised by government.
Both cultural and education policies are demanding:
-
that young people are given opportunities to experience culture of the highest
quality
that young people are encouraged and enabled to fulfil their potential, and ‘find
their talent’
that schools develop a more flexible and personalised curriculum that makes use
of alternative – including cultural - spaces and institutions
that children be educated in ways that develop life skills such as team working
and self-esteem
that schools teach in ways that develop young people’s creativity – across the
curriculum
and that young people should gain real life experiences of working in the cultural
sector, in preparation for working in the creative industries
Whilst the new secondary curriculum recognises the importance of subjects, it places a
strong emphasis on the development of skills for life and work, and builds in a framework
for personal, learning and thinking skills. This framework is applied under six headings:
-
independent enquirers
creative thinkers
team workers
self-managers,
effective participation
and reflective learners
It is fascinating to see how closely the enquire research findings match the aims of the
new secondary curriculum
It is self-evident that the changes to the national curriculum, the introduction of new
qualifications such as the Diploma in Creative and Media and Arts Awards, and the
Learning Outside the Classroom manifesto will lead to a substantial increase in demand
to access galleries and for support from gallery educators. This is a huge challenge to a
sector that feels itself to be under-resourced.
The Burns Owens statistics (2005) stand in stark contract to the expectations on the
gallery sector. Although there are approximately 1,200 organisations in England
programming the contemporary visual arts, many are very small: half of all
organisations presenting contemporary visual arts in England have five employees or
less (including part-time staff).
Interdisciplinary activity is now relatively common across the sector and 60% of
organisations have collaborated with other sectors, principally education. There is a
strong commitment to education and outreach work. In the non-commercial sector 71%
of organisations in England provide dedicated programmes of education and outreach.
Children and young people (aged up to 24) is by far the most common target group.
Despite this apparent commitment to education and outreach work, only a third of
organisations in England actually have any dedicated education/outreach staff and only
4% of their budget is allocated to this work.
The gallery sector is complex and there is no parity of provision. It is polarised between
large-scale national and local authority run museums and galleries that are
comparatively well resourced, and a plethora of small and medium scale voluntary
organisations that are genuinely under-resourced and fragile. Yet it is many of these
smaller galleries that have taken part in enquire and other programmes. They undertake
innovative education and outreach work with artists and provide opportunities for schools
and independent young people in parts of the country where there would otherwise be
no access to exhibitions and contemporary art. These galleries are crucial to the delivery
of the Cultural Offer and to the concepts of excellence and inclusion.
The issue of capacity needs to be addressed by policy makers, by the gallery sector
itself, by local education authorities and individual schools, and through professional
development.
Policy makers:
- need to provide specific funding for galleries to develop the staff and resources to
respond adequately to increased demand
- need to recognise the importance of regional networks for peer support, CPD,
raising the profile of galleries and advocacy
- and the key role of gallery educators as brokers and mediators
Gallery sector:
- galleries should be spending a higher percentage of budgets on access and
learning
- outreach and education staff need to occupy management positions and exert
greater influence in cultural organisations
- similarly, organisations need to appoint Board members who are knowledgeable
and committed to learning and access
- if galleries are to be more open and responsive to young people there needs to
be investment. This is not only about capacity, but also about having the skills to
respond appropriately
- galleries need to nurture young people – particularly from diverse backgrounds so that they provide genuine access and employment opportunities in the
creative industries
- and galleries need to become more articulate about what they have to offer
Local education authorities and schools:
- there needs to be greater awareness amongst teachers of the support and
opportunities available through galleries
- greater recognition of the education sector, of the role of galleries and artists in
delivering the new initiatives and agendas and realistic budgeting for the costs
involved - particularly among senior managers
- a more sophisticated understanding of the particular role of the artist and
adherence to professional fees that recognise experience and training
-
a better understanding in schools and amongst career advisors of the diverse
career paths possible through studying art and design
and an expansion of types of visual arts organisations that the schools work with,
to include artist studios, public art projects
Continuous professional development:
- there needs to be a considerable improvement in the status, quality and
professionalism of the gallery sector involving CPD, leadership training and
experience, diversification and improved salaries
- greater use of artists for education projects associated with museums
- joint and practical CPD for teachers and artists, including placements, exchanges
and mentoring
- and placements for Initial Teacher Trainees in galleries as well as in schools
The enquire research provides valuable evidence of precisely what children and young
people learn through engaging with galleries, contemporary art and artists and the
conditions that enable that learning. It also demonstrates how galleries and artists and
sustained partnerships with schools and teachers can support the teaching of art and
design and the aims of Every Child Matters, along with other education and cultural
policies. The gallery sector has shown how – from large national to small local
organisations can rise to the current challenges and make a significant difference to
teaching, and to the skills and aspirations of young people.