BLOG: ROB ELKINGTON, DIRECTOR – ARTS CONNECT
New Arts Leaders Subject Network
We are pioneering with the Central Co-operative Learning Trust family of nine primary schools, a new approach to developing art subject leaders’ expertise and confidence. In common with the CPDL approach we use in our other programmes and activity, our starting point is one of enquiry – what are the development needs of the art leads and what are their ambitions for art in their school?
The Trust’s CEO, Rich Simcox, helped us to develop the programme further by asking us to focus on the questions – what makes a great art curriculum, an effective leader of art, and a great learner in art?
With these insights we set about co-constructing the Arts Leaders Subject Network, building relationships and trust and offering inspiration, ideas and resources to ‘feed’ the energy, skills and knowledge of the teachers involved.
Throughout this school year we are meeting on eight occasions with the network either online or in person with its 12 members. Our view is that the richest resource the network have is each other, so all of our activities are about allowing those relationships to form and build, through modelling a creative learning environment of interaction and curiosity.
We kicked off the Network with an active half day of establishing the group. With the teachers we thought about what strengths and expertise everyone brings and the leadership challenges they face in their schools. We created a collage of their ambitions for art in their school and the impact of that for their children and we also explored what they as teachers wanted to gain from the network this year.
We are interested in ways that teachers can develop their planning and practice through harnessing the ways that knowledge and insight is produced through physical making and reflecting on that making. This approach led us to talk about how the collages (and other artefacts) could be used as a form of dynamic planning document to engage SLT and other staff in our network teachers’ visions for their subject.
Following this first session, we reconvened online to set practical development goals and tasks between physical network meetings, the intention behind this was to create a sense of momentum and to develop the sense that the network is a place to share learning and challenges.
Examples of these goals set are, in our school we will:
“Strengthen parental and community engagement in art by creating opportunities to showcase children’s creativity”
“Research strategies for hosting school art galleries and community exhibitions to maximise parent involvement.”
The final in-person session of the autumn term was a half day spent at the New Art Gallery Walsall to explore how the resources of a gallery can enrich teaching and the curriculum and how to make the most of a visit to a gallery with children. This was also a special experience for our art leaders, offering inspiration, connecting them with their interests and expanding their knowledge of art and artists.
In the New Year, we are excited to see how the network activity empowers the art leaders, impacting positively on the experiences of fellow teachers and children across the trust schools. Spring will see us focussing on the teaching of art in EYFS and Reception to improve progression planning into KS1.
We’d be delighted to work with other School Trusts wanting to build an art leaders network. If that is of interest to you, then please get in touch and we can talk about our offer, your needs and your budget.
