Marking the 10th anniversary of the ground-breaking publication ’All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education’, a new report is being launched confirming that Creative Partnerships, the government’s flagship creative learning programme which resulted from All Our Futures, is changing the lives of young people and having a real impact on their aspirations, achievements, skills and life chances. The “Creative Partnerships: Changing Young Lives” report, published by new organisation Creativity, Culture and Education (CCE), which manages Creative Partnerships at a national level, shows how involvement in the programme improves GCSE results by 2.5 grades, lowers truancy levels, helps engage families in education and has a positive impact on the economy.
The Changing Young Lives report is a compilation of independent research reports and case studies investigating the impact of Creative Partnerships. Since its launch in 2002, Creative Partnerships has completed 8,520 projects working with over 940,000 young people and engaging over 90,000 teachers in local projects. Research highlights include:
· Young people who have attended Creative Partnerships activities made, on average the equivalent of 2.5 grades better progress in GCSE (NFER)
· Creative Partnerships was shown to be associated with an educationally significant reduction in total absence rates in primary schools (NFER)
· Around 70% of the programme’s funding goes directly to the practitioners and over half of those working with Creative Partnerships have developed other work and employed other professionals as a result. Thus having a positive impact on the economy (Burns Owen Partnership)
Research from The University of Nottingham and The University of Keele looked at the use of Creative Partnerships to mobilise long term change in 62 schools. Findings reveal that Creative Partnerships made a positive difference to the extent and pace of change in the schools. The research also extracts the learning of Creative Partnerships to share with other schools, particularly how to lead and develop a top-down and bottom-up change process.
Paul Collard, Chief Executive of Creativity, Culture and Education, the new organisation which delivers the Creative Partnership programme at a national level, said: “During a time of economic difficulty it is imperative that we develop the skills of children and young people to enable them to respond to change and live productively in the 21st century. Creative Partnerships inspires young people, teachers and parents alike. We look forward to continuing to expand the Creative Partnerships Schools Programme into more institutions this summer giving more people the chance to experience these fantastic opportunities to be creative and access culture.”
’All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education’ led by The National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education, chaired by Sir Ken Robinson triggered the debate into creativity and culture in education ten years ago. Creativity, Culture and Education is launching “Creative Partnerships: Changing Young Lives” at a 10th anniversary celebration event with keynote speaker Sir Ken Robinson at Southbank Centre in London on 21 May 2009.
“Creative Partnerships: Changing Young Lives” is available to download at: www.creativitycultureeducation.org/research-impact/showcaseresearch.
