Schools: Arts Education

Lord Smith of Finsbury Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Smith of Finsbury (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I begin by expressing my interest as a patron of the BRIT school in Croydon and as chairman of trustees in the Wordsworth Trust and the Donmar Warehouse Theatre, both of which have substantial educational and school engagement programmes.

The case for the overwhelming importance of arts education in our schools has been compellingly made by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, in introducing this debate and by the noble Baroness, Lady Evans of Bowes Park, in her excellent maiden speech and by all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. On a personal note, I add what a privilege it is to speak for the first time in a debate alongside the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, who has been a dear friend and comradely fellow campaigner for many years.

The case for the arts in education has also been compellingly made by Sir Ken Robinson in his outstanding report some 15 years ago, by Darren Henley in the two reports that he has produced more recently and by many other studies—as well, of course, by a multitude of successful examples in school after school up and down this country. Why on earth, therefore, is it not a more automatic part of the curriculum and rhythm of school life and educational provision in this country? Some schools shine, while many do not. It depends on individual teachers and head teachers and individual circumstances. It should not have to be a lottery; we should be aiming for all schools to shine in arts provision.

This is not just a nice to have thing—it is an essential. I say this for two fundamental reasons. First, education is all about drawing young people to fulfilling their fullest potential in all senses and ways, and that has to include engagement in the arts, culture and creativity. It is about lifting horizons and exploring new ways in which to see and understand the world. It is about understanding humanity and emotion and what makes us all the people we are; that is what education is all about and it is what the arts fundamentally can offer to education.

I take just one simple example, taking place out of school rather than in school, but the principle is exactly the same, a thing called the Hartcliffe Boys Dance Company, started in Bristol many years ago by a visionary man called Vic Ecclestone. Instead of lowering horizons for the teenage boys on the Hartcliffe estate in south Bristol, an area of enormous deprivation, he decided to lift their horizons and introduced them to the power of modern dance. Not only that, but he persuaded them to write, perform, choreograph and video an opera about the Prometheus myth.

This was not teaching kids how to be a good DJ; it was about really challenging them—lifting their horizons and enhancing their life skills. The excitement and the sense of achievement and self-worth that they were able to achieve through this transformed not only their lives but the entire estate that they lived on. This is incalculably rewarding. It ought to be part of the warp and weft of our education provision, for whoever, from whatever background, to benefit from.

Let us not forget the importance of creativity in subsequent employment and career opportunities, either. This is not just about the creative industries, devoted though I have been for many years to the promotion of their role in our economy. They are, of course, hugely important, and account for about 6% to 7% of our national economy. Creativity matters elsewhere across the economy as well, in all other businesses and public organisations.

Yet what do we do about creativity for our school pupils? We squeeze it out of them. A child of five will sing and dance, express themselves, paint and make music with free abandon and enormous creativity. We then spend the next 10 years of their educational experience teaching them that that is not important. It is, and we should teach them that it is. We should encourage children to continue with creative spirit, if they have it.

I have one more thing to say. When I was Secretary of State for Culture, I was very proud to have established what we called the creative partnerships programme. It was about linking artists, performers, creative businesses, directors and producers with schools in some of the most deprived areas of this country. It gave pupils the chance not only to experience and learn, and to enjoy the arts, but to practise the arts: to direct a play, to make a movie, to compose a piece of music, to design a dance—and to paint, to act, to dance, to design and to make music. It was not just about enjoyment and experience and preparation for creative careers; it was also about enabling the whole of the rest of the school to benefit from the experience that those pupils were having. In Ofsted inspection after Ofsted inspection, the schools that were part of the creative partnerships programme outperformed other schools by miles. That programme has now been abandoned. I was very sorry to see it go, and I hope that one day, either it or something very like it may be put in place once again, to lift the lives of countless pupils up and down the country.