Cultural education in England has been in turmoil recently, with high-profile political rows over Ebacc and the national curriculum, as well as a considerable erosion of funding for learning programmes at arts and cultural organisations.
One scheme to be hit by further cuts at Arts Council England (ACE) is the Bridge organisation programme, a three-year, £10m initiative to help schools and young people, particularly in deprived areas, connect with the arts council’s national portfolio network and the other arts and cultural bodies it funds. Now approaching its second year, the programme will receive a 1% cut in 2013-14 and 2% in 2014-15.
The scheme was established to fill the gap left by programmes such as Creative Partnerships and Find Your Talent, which were axed after ACE received a 30% cut to its grant in aid.
Henley review
Though its funding pot is much smaller, the scheme has similar goals – fulfilling the recommendations of the Henley Review and ACE’s 10-year strategic vision, which states that every child and young person should have the opportunity to experience arts and culture.
The key difference is that the Bridge organisations will not directly commission, fund or deliver cultural activities for young people. Instead, 10 regional companies, along with four associate organisations in London, have been appointed to work in a facilitating role.
They find out what kind of cultural provision schools and communities are looking for, signpost cultural offers to them and enable professionals and networks from across the cultural sector to talk to each other, share good practice and avoid duplicating their resources on similar projects.
The Bridge organisations also provide training for schools and cultural organisations to become involved in the arts council’s two flagship schemes for improving engagement among young people: the Arts Award for young people who participate in cultural projects; and Artsmark, the accreditation awarded to schools with high-quality cultural provision.
Long-term impact
The Bridge organisations aim to have a long-term impact, building strategic relationships that will endure after the funding round ends in 2015. Those involved in the scheme remain optimistic about this year’s cuts, saying the reduction is not so large that it will affect their overall plans, although it may limit the scale of their work.
But how does this work fit in with the museum and heritage sector? The scheme was conceived by the arts council before its remit expanded and, originally, it was not intended to include museums or heritage.
This risked leaving it open to the kind of criticism levelled at Creative Partnerships, which was accused of having an “arts bias” when launched a decade ago.
One museum professional says that, when the scheme was first rolled out, there was a sense that the arts council did not fully grasp how advanced many regional museums already were with regard to their education and learning offers.
There is certainly a lot of focus on other art forms, but encouragingly, many Bridge organisations, such as The Mighty Creatives in the East Midlands and Curious Minds in the north-west, have existing relationships with the museum sector and are trying to build on that legacy.
The scheme has also been integrated with the £3.6m Museums and Schools scheme, which funds 10 regional museums to partner with nationals and work with clusters of schools in areas of low cultural engagement.
For example, the Curious Minds Bridge organisation is acting as a “critical friend”, coordinating the work of the Pennine Lancashire Consortium and its national partner, the Sir John Soane’s Museum, to encourage schools to proactively access their education offer. It aims to ensure each young person in the region is given the opportunity to visit a museum three times a year.
The organisation has also appointed an agent to track down museum and heritage offers in the region for a new One Stop Shop website that will make it easy for schools to view all cultural education activities in one place, and to search for specific criteria.
Elsewhere, the Sage Gateshead has worked with Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums (TWAM) to ensure a heritage angle is included in the first Festival of the North East, which takes place in June.
TWAM’s head of programmes, Bill Griffiths, who sits on the bridge organisation’s strategic working group, says the scheme is also helping to ensure that good practice built up by museums under Renaissance is not lost in the face of the region’s cuts.
Bridge organisations cannot hope to replace what has been lost through cuts, but those involved are hopeful the scheme will help them to create a strong strategic network to enable them continue engaging young people amid the upheaval still to come.
Area organisation funding
Norfolk and Norwich £500,000
Royal Opera House £730,000
The Mighty Creatives £900,000
A New Direction £1.1m
Working with four associate Bridge organisations:
Sadler’s Wells £75,000
Roundhouse £160,000
Apples and Snakes £55,000
Lyric Hammersmith £160,000
The Sage Gateshead £483,000
Curious Minds £1.35m
Artswork £1.53m
RIO £880,000
Arts Connect £1.12m
Cape UK £1.02m
One scheme to be hit by further cuts at Arts Council England (ACE) is the Bridge organisation programme, a three-year, £10m initiative to help schools and young people, particularly in deprived areas, connect with the arts council’s national portfolio network and the other arts and cultural bodies it funds. Now approaching its second year, the programme will receive a 1% cut in 2013-14 and 2% in 2014-15.
The scheme was established to fill the gap left by programmes such as Creative Partnerships and Find Your Talent, which were axed after ACE received a 30% cut to its grant in aid.
Henley review
Though its funding pot is much smaller, the scheme has similar goals – fulfilling the recommendations of the Henley Review and ACE’s 10-year strategic vision, which states that every child and young person should have the opportunity to experience arts and culture.
The key difference is that the Bridge organisations will not directly commission, fund or deliver cultural activities for young people. Instead, 10 regional companies, along with four associate organisations in London, have been appointed to work in a facilitating role.
They find out what kind of cultural provision schools and communities are looking for, signpost cultural offers to them and enable professionals and networks from across the cultural sector to talk to each other, share good practice and avoid duplicating their resources on similar projects.
The Bridge organisations also provide training for schools and cultural organisations to become involved in the arts council’s two flagship schemes for improving engagement among young people: the Arts Award for young people who participate in cultural projects; and Artsmark, the accreditation awarded to schools with high-quality cultural provision.
Long-term impact
The Bridge organisations aim to have a long-term impact, building strategic relationships that will endure after the funding round ends in 2015. Those involved in the scheme remain optimistic about this year’s cuts, saying the reduction is not so large that it will affect their overall plans, although it may limit the scale of their work.
But how does this work fit in with the museum and heritage sector? The scheme was conceived by the arts council before its remit expanded and, originally, it was not intended to include museums or heritage.
This risked leaving it open to the kind of criticism levelled at Creative Partnerships, which was accused of having an “arts bias” when launched a decade ago.
One museum professional says that, when the scheme was first rolled out, there was a sense that the arts council did not fully grasp how advanced many regional museums already were with regard to their education and learning offers.
There is certainly a lot of focus on other art forms, but encouragingly, many Bridge organisations, such as The Mighty Creatives in the East Midlands and Curious Minds in the north-west, have existing relationships with the museum sector and are trying to build on that legacy.
The scheme has also been integrated with the £3.6m Museums and Schools scheme, which funds 10 regional museums to partner with nationals and work with clusters of schools in areas of low cultural engagement.
For example, the Curious Minds Bridge organisation is acting as a “critical friend”, coordinating the work of the Pennine Lancashire Consortium and its national partner, the Sir John Soane’s Museum, to encourage schools to proactively access their education offer. It aims to ensure each young person in the region is given the opportunity to visit a museum three times a year.
The organisation has also appointed an agent to track down museum and heritage offers in the region for a new One Stop Shop website that will make it easy for schools to view all cultural education activities in one place, and to search for specific criteria.
Elsewhere, the Sage Gateshead has worked with Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums (TWAM) to ensure a heritage angle is included in the first Festival of the North East, which takes place in June.
TWAM’s head of programmes, Bill Griffiths, who sits on the bridge organisation’s strategic working group, says the scheme is also helping to ensure that good practice built up by museums under Renaissance is not lost in the face of the region’s cuts.
Bridge organisations cannot hope to replace what has been lost through cuts, but those involved are hopeful the scheme will help them to create a strong strategic network to enable them continue engaging young people amid the upheaval still to come.
Bridge organisations 2012–15
Area organisation funding
- East
Norfolk and Norwich £500,000
Royal Opera House £730,000
- East Midlands
The Mighty Creatives £900,000
- London
A New Direction £1.1m
Working with four associate Bridge organisations:
Sadler’s Wells £75,000
Roundhouse £160,000
Apples and Snakes £55,000
Lyric Hammersmith £160,000
- North-east
The Sage Gateshead £483,000
- North-west
Curious Minds £1.35m
- South-east
Artswork £1.53m
- South-west
RIO £880,000
- West Midlands
Arts Connect £1.12m
- Yorkshire
Cape UK £1.02m
