Art Life - University for the Creative Arts

This is the story of a five-year collaborationbetween the University for the Creative Artsat Canterbury and Turner Contemporary inMargate. These two organisations sharea vision for widening participation in thearts and have worked together to provideeducational opportunities for youngstudents, many of whom may be the firstgeneration in their families to experiencefurther and higher education.A Five-Year PartnershipIt was a recognition thatstudents needed to improvetheir communication skillsthat led to the developmentof the partnership with TurnerContemporary. The University’sNational Diploma in Art andDesign courses had introducedthe Key Skills in Communicationqualification as a compulsorypart of the students’ studies in2002, in response to concernsthat underdeveloped literacyskills would be a barrier tosuccess in higher education.Although most students hadgained a GCSE in English atgrade A-C on entry, this wasnot reflected in their abilityto practice those skills in thecontext of their studio andacademic work on the course.This phenomenon was alsoacknowledged in the 14-19Curriculum and QualificationsReform final report (2004) ofthe working group chaired byMike Tomlinson. Key findingsfrom the report were thattoo few students continuedlearning beyond compulsoryschooling, young people leavingschool were not adequatelyequipped for the workplace,and that many qualificationswere not understood byemployers. The Tomlinsonreport highlighted weaknessesin school leavers in terms oftheir ability to communicate,calculate and use computers,and was critical of the amountof formal assessment studentsexperience.The Leitch Review wascommissioned ‘to considerwhat the UK’s long termambition should be fordeveloping skills in orderto maximize economicprosperity and productivityand to improve socialjustice’, Leitch advocatesskills development ascritical to these aims.‘In the 21st century,our natural resourceis our people – andtheir potential isboth untapped andvast. Skills are thekey to unlockingthat potential.’(Lord Leitch, Prosperity forall in the Global Economy:World Class Skill, 2005).