ACE news

I am delighted to announce we have been chosen by Arts Council England to be one of 10 strategic partner organisations nationally to help children and young people experience the richness of the arts.

This work will begin on 1st April 2012 and will build on our track record in helping schools build creative learning programmes for children and young people across the East Midlands. We look forward to working with Arts Council England and our partners in the region to continue to build amazing partnerships between arts organisations, children, young people, families and schools.


TMC’s priorities for 2011-12 are to complete our major funded programmes - Creative Partnerships, Ignition and Collaborative Investment. These world-leading programmes have made a significant impact upon young people’s lives in the region – improving attendance in schools, raising young people’s attainment in a wide range of subjects and empowering young people to play a positive role.
We look forward to completing the best year of activity yet, sharing and celebrating the work of the many hundreds of schools, creative practitioners and other partners that have made this work such a success.


At this time of celebration for The Mighty Creatives, we also understand that some artists and arts organisations in the region will be uncertain about their funding futures.
The arts are a fundamental aspect of giving children and young people the very best start in life. Wherever possible, we will play our role to argue for investment in the arts to help all children and young people thrive.

Children and Young People Now Awards Finalist

OK, so we didn’t win…. But the experience of being shortlisted for a Children & Young People’s Now Award was a thrilling one. The Creative Partnerships project “Filling Buckets and Lighting Fires” at Eyres Monsell and Gilmorten Children’s Centre and Saffron Sure Start Centre is an excellent example of how creative collaboration raises expectations and puts new tools in the hands of the adults responsible for helping our children get the very best start in life. As we didn’t win, I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved in the project, and all of those partners responsible for every other Creative Partnerships project we have been associated with. Together, we have had the chance to put creativity at the heart of education and we have proven that it works: surely the better reward?

The most inspiring part of our trip to London was the opportunity to spend time with two parents from the children’s centres, Debs and Jeanette. Both deeply committed to promoting new opportunities for the parents and children on their estate, it was a true privilege to share our moment in the spotlight with them. Deb and Jeanette’s commitment to creative activities with their children was clear and deep – to the extent that they will be introducing parents from neighbouring estates to the ideas they have been developing through their Creative Partnerships project. No better reward, and no better ambassadors for the work we do. Thanks again.

The issue of creativity in the early years takes a profile boost this month with the publication of a new series of essays by Demos: Born creative. The publication makes a number of valuable recommendations and is well worth a read. Let’s hope it proves influential in the forthcoming review of the early years foundation stage conducted by Dame Clare Tickell.

Following the announced closure of the Creative Partnerships programme, it is more important than ever that we give children facing significant challenges the opportunities to thrive. Thanks to former TMCer Adam Clarke for sharing the following illustration of Ken Robinson’s arguments for creative change in education. Worth 11 minutes and 40 seconds of any one’s time:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

A flourishing space…

Arts Council England will shortly publish its 10 year strategy. There will then be a flurry of briefings as they set out their funding and partnership programmes to continue to extend access to the arts. The next few days will therefore be of serious interest to those with a priority concern about children and young people.

Our goal in TMC is to make sure that the social and economic significance of children’s creativity, as explored through programmes like Creative Partnerships and Find Your Talent, is fully understood and valued. This will involve working with our many partners to better understand how the removal of funding from these programmes affects young people in the region and the many adults that inspire them. It will also involve setting out a bold development agenda for the future, based on the broadest possible body of support and mutual ambition. The key challenge will be how we can connect children and young people’s needs and aspirations with the resources that are required to put their ideas into action. I remain confident that this is possible - but it will require hard work and innovative thinking.

Last week, I travelled to Brussels with our team of directors to gain a better understanding of European policy pertaining to young people and culture. The message we have brought back is a simple one: young people’s creativity and capacity for innovation is at the heart of European social and economic recovery. Whether this is articulated through Europe 2020 (the EU’s economic development strategy), the Council of the European Union’s declaration on ‘promoting a creative generation’, or the recently published research report Youth Access to Culture (a cracking good read if you fancy it: http://ec.europa.eu/youth/news/news1788_en.htm itself likely to form the basis of a second Council declaration on this important theme.

During our time in Brussels, concern was expressed that the UK - seen as a pre-eminent leader in this field - might slip back due to the spending cuts. Whilst there is a risk, our ambition in TMC is to make sure this is not the case, joining with our partners to ensure we retain a focus on what works (investing in children and young people’s creativity); and how it should work (starting from a perspective of what young people are capable of, not what’s missing; involving young people in the development of policy, the design, delivery and evaluation of new programmes).

Speaking at the recent launch of the Culture Action Europe campaign We are more, President Barosso said: ''in challenging times such as these, creative thinking is more essential than ever. We must provide a flourishing space where culture can unlock creativity in each of us'' http://ec.europa.eu/culture/news/news2995_en.htm We couldn’t agree more.

Inspired by ...

The young people participating in the Journals project at UKYA10. In case you missed it, TMC worked with Architects of Air and Citizen’s Eye to create a one of a kind blogging station at the UK Artists Event in Derby. As part of our Big Lottery and Renaissance East Midlands funded 2009-12 Journals Project, we wanted to engage a younger audience in the inaugural event (a showcase for young artistic talent, 18-35). The Journals Project helps young people document their views and experiences of the Cultural Olympiad in the run up to London 2012. The journals they create will be deposited in the region’s archive offices, a permanently accessible account of these important events.

Having the stunning, inflatable Luminarium serve as base camp for our Journals residency (see here) really added to the status of the young bloggers, giving them a prime location from which they could capture, record and disseminate their Journals. There just wasn’t enough bandwidth to keep them going! And they really benefited from their ‘access all areas’ passes too - Terry Shave, Chair of the UK Young Artists Board gave the project a fabulous name-check in his opening remarks on launch night after his encounter with a young journalist - thanks Terry! We look forward to working with you again on future events.

UKYA is an event close to our hearts as it aims to celebrate and extend young talent. On launch night, Calum Stewart gave an impressive performance on the wooden flute, illustrating how traditional and contemporary sensibilities can combine through stunning technique. A thrilling start to an astonishing few days of art and ambition. Congratulations to everyone involved. Next stop – World Young Artists in 2012.

More information about the Journals Project is available at http://www.themightycreatives.com/journals

What can we create together?

Juggling known unknowns

Today’s Comprehensive Spending Review announcement has clearly been difficult for the arts and culture, but perhaps not disastrous. What remains to be seen is how the government’s funding priorities will now be implemented by Arts Council England and others. I hope we can focus on how best to engage children and young people with the arts in ways that draw maximum benefit for them and for others. In preserving the ‘front-line arts’ (an ambiguous term…), let’s be rigorous about what works and set the climate for new opportunities rather than pared-down old ones.We won’t know the full implications of the spending review for TMC’s programmes for a while to come. It is still our ambition to complete the current Creative Partnerships school year in wonderful style. We also aim to launch new services that meet the needs of a new generation of creative children and young people.

My default question looking forward is a simple one: what can we create together?

Awards season beckons!

Be Mighty Be Creative Awards 2010

We’ve just launched our Be Mighty Be Creative Awards for schools who have participated in the Creative Partnerships programme in the East Midlands. As we debate the meaning of Big Society, there can be no better time to show how children and young people have been using their creativity to transform front-line services.

We’re looking for groups of children and young people who have worked creatively with each other and with adults to deliver new approaches to learning that have really made an impact. 9 teams of children and young people will get the opportunity to have a film made about their work and receive £500 to share their achievements with other schools. More information about this exciting opportunity can be found on TMC’s web site: www.themightycreatives.com.


We’ll announce the winners later in 2010 and host a gala screening of the winning films towards the end of the school year.


Children and Young People Now Awards 2010
... whilst I’m talking about awards, I want to share my excitement for TMC’s very own nomination. The Creative Partnerships project “Filling Buckets and Lighting Fires” developed by Eyres Monsell & Gilmorton Children's Centre and Saffron Sure Start Centre has been nominated for the Children and Young People Now Early Years Award. This award recognises “the initiative that has done the most to improve the life chances of babies and young children, especially among disadvantaged or hard-to-reach communities”.


It’s time to dust off our finery and head down to London for a glittering awards ceremony in late November.... Let me dispense with any false modesty – I really want the project to win! Not so much for TMC, but to celebrate the commitment schools and children centres working with the Creative Partnerships programme in the East Midlands since 2002 have made to giving young people the very best start in life. Keep your fingers crossed. Only 7 more weeks...

Reaching beyond the stars...

Last week (4/10/10) I presented at the Museums Association conference in Manchester as part of a panel session called ‘The Republic of Museums’ chaired by Tim Desmond from the Galleries of Justice in Nottingham. The theme of our session was partnerships in the new funding and policy era. I spoke about the opportunity and challenge of working with children and young people as partners in service reform and transformation. My key idea being that only by working collaboratively with each other and with young people will we be able to extend the benefits of the arts, creativity and culture to those young people who might currently be missing out. Foremost in my mind were the recent Taking Part Survey results which clearly identify a drop-off in cultural participation post compulsory school age, and research commissioned for the Find Your Talent programme which paints a picture of a long-standing failure to extend and sustain demand for culture beyond moderately affluent, already engaged communities.


These perspectives were reinforced the next day (5/10/10) at a session organised by CCE for their Young Facilitators, young people from across the country who helped drive the Tell Us Bus survey – a roaming, national review of young people’s opinions about culture. I won’t disclose their key findings here (a full report will come from CCE later in the year) but the young people involved (including three from the East Midlands) were inspirational in their collaborative skills, depth of commitment and insight.


All of these voices give rise to one clear but challenging conundrum: how can we ensure more children and young people have access to the benefits of culture? As our new government focuses on narrowing the attainment gap, it seems to me more important than ever that we put the benefits of culture more in the hands of more children and young people, particularly those with little prior experience of it. In an economic era of ‘something’ rather than ‘plenty’, we will need innovative partnership that help create and extend this offer, focusing first and foremost on the benefits to young people and their communities: but how?


Young people at the Tell Us Bus survey consultation spoke plainly about the need to invest in the existing and more accessible (to them) infrastructure of youth and community settings rather than ‘glittering’ new buildings that they find hard to get to, prohibitively expensive and imposing. This suggests an important departure from past cultural policy – where flagships were everything.


Now, local is everything: public services in the hands of those that use, and increasingly, create them. The cultural sector in the East Midlands is incredibly well suited to this task (given the right resources...), with a huge number of small organisations and individual practitioners spread over our considerable geography. Engaging with communities of greatest need in a sustainable way and producing compelling evidence of how the ‘gap’ is narrowed by culture will be some of the challenges here. But we must also ensure children have the opportunity to take part in culture on a variety of scales: the local, the regional, national and international, the intimate as well as the spectacular. Culture should help reveal new horizons and opportunities, not keep our eyes focused on the doorstep. In that sense, we need to work collaboratively with larger scale providers to connect the local with the national in a way that extends the fine-grain of regular interaction as well as the larger initiative-driven ‘moments’ of the past.


So, how do we find the new partnerships (rather than new government funded programmes....) that allow us to innovate, to extend demand and break long-standing barriers to participation? I have a sense that we – as the cultural sector – are part of the problem (running the risk of repeatedly selling our own wares....), which is why partnership working with children and young people – as co-creators of a new era of access and opportunity – appears an even more compelling solution.


But what are we offering? Another suggestion from the Tell Us Bus facilitators was the idea that yes, culture needs defining so that young people understand what the opportunities are, but that it then needs unleashing so that a wide variety of activities can be explored, driven by the user or creator. Here, culture, sport and recreational activities merge for young people in a way that focuses on what they want – great places to grow up – rather than what they are doing.


Perhaps this is what Tim meant by his Republic of Museums – a new approach to cultural provision that breaks down barriers and creates new, better integrated offers? This would certainly be hugely valuable, but I wonder if it goes far enough? With the inevitable reduction in funds, perhaps the ‘republic’ needs to be drawn more broadly, bringing together partners and providers with a variety of skills from a range of contexts that help create the great places?


What is clear is that as the culture sector prepares to ride the waves of next week’s comprehensive spending review, the old ways of thinking simply aren’t possible. As TMC builds new programmes with, by and for children and young people, we are looking for new opportunities with known as well as new partners. If you relish the new, have the ambition to do things differently, and want to create new opportunities, we would love to hear from you.