Arts: Contribution to Education, Health and Emotional Well-being

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for securing this debate and for her important contribution.

I want to look at children in schools and in particular at how disadvantaged children can access the arts. The great and the good can go to the opera, visit art galleries and hear symphony orchestras, but how do we make sure that children living in abject poverty on council estates also have the joy and benefits of the arts?

Before I develop that theme, I have a message for Mr Gove. The attainment in maths and English of students who engage in the arts improves, particularly in the case of children from low-income families. I will give two examples from my own city of Liverpool. The first is in West Everton, which is one of the poorest, most deprived communities in the country. There is a project there where every primary school child—not just some, every single primary school child—learns a musical instrument. They form an orchestra, which has performed within the community, with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and here at the Royal Festival Hall, and when they leave their primary school a second orchestra is formed at secondary school level. That has been hugely significant for those young people.

My second example came from Liverpool being the European Capital of Culture in 2008. A programme was set up called Creative Communities. Ordinary communities could bid for and secure grants for arts projects. We are talking not about arts organisations but about individuals within the community, or groups of individuals, securing grants. One school for 11 to 16 year-olds in one of the most deprived parts of inner-city Liverpool, with high truancy and absenteeism rates, problems with drugs and very low attainment, applied for a grant to make a film. It secured a £20,000 grant, and a film producer worked with those young people. They made the film, and I remember going to the opening night; they were all in black tie, with a red carpet and all the rest of it. That project was life-changing for those young people, and I mean life-changing. When they had finished working with that film producer and put on the premiere night of the film, they wanted to carry on with what they had been doing. The school was for 11 to 16 year-olds, but they wanted to do A-levels, so the drama teacher, who was called Miss Jones, continued to work with them on Saturday mornings. Of that group of 12 children, two went on to be teachers. Truancy and absenteeism at the school decreased and results improved. Arts really can inspire young people. Projects like Kids in Museums and Shakespeare in schools are hugely important.

I want to mention one final point in my allotted four minutes. I am terribly impressed by how the Arts Council’s Artsmark has encouraged schools to focus not only on visual arts but on performing arts. Over the past four years we have seen a 44% increase in the number of schools recognising the importance of applying for an Artsmark, be it bronze, silver or gold. Does the Minister have any information on how we can encourage that Arts Council programme to continue?