John Tiffany To Speak On The Need To Improve And Protect Arts Education At First Art School Event

Olivier Award winning director John Tiffany is to speak about the need to improve and protect arts education at the first event by new company Art School.

The director of "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" and Associate Director at The Royal Court Theatre will speak alongside former Head of Film at Creative England Caroline Cooper Charles, Chair of What Next? Generation Daniel Harrison, and founder of Actor Awareness Tom Stocks.

The event, which is on the theme of Drama Education, is the first in a new series of events designed to bring leaders in the education sector and arts industry together to share work going on in arts education, advice, and recommendations for how to improve and protect arts education. Future events will include events on Dance, Music, Art, New Writing, Schools and Universities.

The In Conversation sessions will be audio recorded and published to provide permanent access to the best work going on in arts education, advice and recommendations, and the book will also be passed to the government to advocate for the need to protect arts education.

John Tiffany will expand on his thoughts about arts education from this year's Olivier Awards where he stated, "If I was graduating from high school now I certainly wouldn't be holding this award" and "It's disturbing how the path I took to get here, free guitar lessons and university grants, is now blocked."

Free tickets to the event can be booked at: https://artschool-drama.eventbrite.co.uk.

The Art School event will run from 5pm - 9pm on October 26th in London and attendees are welcome to attend all or part of the event and will have an opportunity to ask questions as part of the event.

Jennifer Tuckett, one of the new Directors of Art School, said: "We are delighted to be launching Art School to bring together the different work going on in terms of arts education and explore how we can best improve and protect arts education. With EBacc not including creative subjects, the end of arts A Levels such as Creative Writing, which is ending this year, and a decline in the take up of arts subjects at school and university level, now is a crucial time to work together to address this subject and explore how we can best improve and protect arts education. We look forward to discussing drama education with John Tiffany and the other speakers as part of our first event".

People who would like to receive more information on Art School, the new company being set up to support the education sector and arts industry to come together to improve and protect arts education, can sign up to the mailing list at www.artschool.space.

Future Art School speakers include composer Hannah Kendall, who recently took pat in Chineke! at BBC Proms, the Bacc for the Future campaign, Mulberry School, which won the first Fringe First awarded for a schools production, 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.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos