Artis Impact is launched today: a new professional development programme proven to raise standards through the arts
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As the debate over the future of arts subjects within the EBacc continues, Artis and the Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts demonstrate the value of integrating arts within core teaching in the UK.
The partners launch Artis Impact, an extensive professional development programme that matches Artis Impact Mentors with class teachers over an initial three years. During an academic year, a school could be welcoming a contemporary dancer, a theatre director and a jazz musician, providing teachers with an invaluable job-embedded training and children with the best in-class field trips they will ever have. The programme enables teachers and children to remove boundaries from maths, English and science, and imaginatively merge these subjects with different art forms. Children compose songs about punctuation, act out habitats and dance geometry.
This effective interdisciplinary methodology builds on the Learning Through the Arts® programme from The Royal Conservatory in Canada. More than 45 studies have consistently shown that this programme improves outcomes and benefits children, teachers and headteachers. A three-year study by Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario concluded that students in the Learning Through the Arts® programme scored an average of 11 percentile points higher in maths than their peers.
The Artis Impact programme was developed when the Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts approached Artis. Both organisations believe in the necessity of engaging children in the arts as part of a rounded education.
A sentiment shared by HRH Prince of Wales, who founded the Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts in 2002; “All the current evidence shows that early engagement with the arts can have life-changing effects on children, particularly those who might struggle to succeed. Active involvement in the arts is certainly one of the most fruitful channels I have found.”
Rebecca Boyle Suh, Chief Executive of Artis, says “Learning and teaching is most effective in achieving academic, social, and personal development when it is participatory, active and connected to the learning styles of each child. Engaging children with the arts even in core subjects like maths and science has the potential to completely transform their education experience for the better.”
The programme is currently in a test phase across selected schools this term and is available to schools in London from September 2013 and across the UK from September 2014. Thanks to the Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts and generous financial assistance from the Garfield Weston Foundation, Artis Impact is a part-funded programme. Eligibility criteria includes factors such as a high percentage of children entitled to free school meals, below the government floor standard pass rate at level 4 in KS2 English and maths, a high proportion of EAL learners or Ofsted inspection findings.
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08 Jan 2013 |
