Art School Announces Campaign To Introduce National Arts In Education Week

Art School, the new company being set up to support the arts industry and education sector to come together to improve and protect arts education, has announced that, as part of the company's first initiative, they are launching a campaign to create National Arts in Education Week in the UK.

National Arts in Education Week was introduced in the US in 2010, and passed by Congress, and is designed to promote and showcase the immense role arts education has in producing engaged, successful, and college- and career-ready students.

Jennifer Tuckett, one of the Directors of the new company Art School said: "With arts education under threat in the UK due to EBacc not containing arts subjects, uptake of arts subjects at GCSE level at the lowest level for a decade, the closure of some arts A Levels, including Creative Writing which comes to an end this year, and a decrease in university level uptake of arts courses, now is a crucial time for us to work together to make the case to the government that it needs to show its support for arts education. We hope National Arts in Education Week would be an important step towards ensuring we protect arts education in the UK and we hope Art School will help support the arts industry and education sector to come together to share information, and work together to improve and protect arts education".

David Evan Giles, co-Director of Art School, said: "For too long, governments have treated the arts as a soft subject. In fact, the creative industries are the most rapidly growing sector of the British economy so even the most hard-boiled economic rationalist needs to understand the vital importance of arts education. We are in serious danger of damaging the jewel in the crown of the British economy."

The campaign for National Arts in Education Week accompanies Art School's first initiative, the event series "Art School: The Future of Arts Education", which brings together leaders in the arts and education sectors to share thoughts on arts education, what's working and what's not, and recommendations for how to improve and protect arts education.

The first event is on Drama Education and speakers include Olivier Award winning director John Tiffany, who recently directed "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" and is an Associate Director at The Royal Court Theatre, former Head of Film at Creative England and film producer Caroline Cooper Charles, What Next? Generation Chair Daniel Harrison and founder of Actor Awareness Tom Stocks.

Future speakers include composer Hannah Kendall, who recently composed for Chineke! at BBC Proms and has been BBC Radio 3's composer of the week and teaches at the Royal Academy of Music, the Bacc for the Future campaign, Mulberry School, which won the first Fringe First awarded for a schools production, Guardian Higher Education Network Editor Rachel Hall, former parliamentary researcher, fashion stylist and founder of Fashion Roundtable Tamara Cincik, and Oxford University academic Helen Campbell Pickford, co-author of the influential "In Battalions" survey into new writing which former Culture Minister Ed Vaizey credited as leading to tax changes for new writing theatres, amongst others.

A book will also be published of the talks to be passed to the government to make the case for the need to protect arts education.

For more information on the campaign to introduce National Arts in Education Week please go to: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/introduce-national-arts-in-education-week

For more information on Art's School first event please go to: www.artschool-drama.eventbrite.co.uk

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