The Arts in Schools - Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

in schools,and has published a range of related training materials for artistsand teachers (Sharp and Dust 1990). The Further Education Unit (FEU)responded to the report by mounting its own enquiry and consultationinto Creative and Arts Activities in Further Education (FEU 1987), andcommissioned a further survey of good practice.The largest and most ambitious initiative to come from The Arts in Schoolsreport has been the SCDC/NCC Arts in Schools project which was launchedin 1985 and concluded in Autumn 1989. The positive response to the reportfrom schools, LEAs and arts organisations was followed by many requests forpractical support to act on its recommendations. In 1983 Sir Keith Josephabolished the Schools Council, and in 1984 he established the SchoolCurriculum Development Committee (SCDC). Early in 1984, Peter Brinsonand I approached the SCDC with an outline proposal for a major developmentproject 'to give practical support to schools and local education authorities indeveloping the place of the arts in the education of all pupils'.SCDC was about to write to all LEAs for comment on its proposed prioritiesin curriculum development and included in them 'an improved education inthe arts'. Over seventy of the one hundred and four LEAs in England andWales replied to the SCDC circular, and of these over fifty urged that a toppriority should be given to an arts project. Given the prevailing politicalemphasis on science and technology this was an extraordinary mandate fromeducationalists for a broader view of national priorities.A national seminar helped to draw up the brief for the project which waslaunched by SCDC in September 1985. Following the spirit of the report, theArts in Schools project was concerned with all the arts—music, dance, drama,visual and verbal arts—and it covered the whole five to sixteen age range.Over seventy LEAs and the main arts funding agencies attended briefings onthe proposed project and forty LEAs submitted detailed bids to be involved.This was a remarkable level of enthusiasm, given that the project was notoffering any direct funding to the LEAs. During the three-year developmentprogramme the project's central team worked with full-time co-ordinators ineighteen authorities to organise over three hundred programmes ofdevelopment in over two hundred primary and secondary schools. The projectbrought together development groups of teachers from all arts disciplines toidentify common problems and to tackle them jointly.The work of the project spanned four of the most turbulent years in the historyof state education. Launched at the height of the teachers' industrial actionin September 1985, it concluded in September 1989 on the eve of theintroduction of the National Curriculum. With the enactment of the EducationReform Bill in Autumn 1988, SCDC was itself abolished to be replaced bythe National Curriculum Council (NCC) which assumed responsibility for theArts in Schools project.One of the curiosities of the 1987 General Election campaign was the extentto which opinion had changed on the question of a national curriculum. In1976 James Callaghan had been vilified by educationalists and opposingpoliticians for even suggesting such a thing. Ten years later, campaigningxiv