10PP - How to achieve a step change in the arts offer of schools

It’s a funny old world. It’s already been a long week and I wasn’t really looking forward to chairing a round-table discussion on ‘Ensuring an entitlement to a cultural education for all in London’ at Whole Education’s annual conference.

But an interesting argument is all that is needed to revive a jaded intellectual palate. We got that with a presentation from the always clear thinking Holly Donagh, Partnerships Director at the cultural think tank and catalyst A New Direction. Holly described research on the deficit gap in participation between disadvantaged and other young people, and also between teenage boys and girls.

She went on to identify three arguments that might be marshalled for greater school (particularly secondary school) investment in arts and culture: The contribution to attainment; the contribution to the broader development of young people’s character; and growing the ‘cultural capital’ of young people, especially the disadvantaged.

But Holly also freely accepted the problems with each of these arguments. The first lacks conclusive evidence showing that arts participation boosts results. In relation to character, what seems to matter is engagement in any kind of sustained, disciplined activity so arts is no better than sports (more popular with boys), scouts, volunteering or, come to that, stamp collecting. And, as for cultural capital, there is little or no evidence that cultural engagement in schools carries over into a predisposition among disadvantaged groups for cultural participation in later life.

The evidence, such that it is, will not move us from where we are. If school leaders believe in the intrinsic and knock-on effects of cultural engagement they will take it seriously and do great stuff. But those who are sceptical will remain unconvinced. Meanwhile the message from policy makers is that it is STEM alone that ensures a good career, while arts subjects (apart from English) are ever more marginalised in the curriculum.

For those of us who simply believe that participation in arts and culture can play a powerful role in education and social justice the answer lies not in evidence but in an effective combination of pressure, support and incentives. In this way more schools which are open to the idea that arts and culture can help engage and develop pupils and close the attainment can be convinced to do something.

Thus my idea:

10PP would be an initiative combining pressure on schools and cultural providers with a clever, easy, flexible mechanism to build the relationship between the two. This is how it would work:

A cultural institution (let’s say A New Direction for the sake of the argument) would calculate/publish the pupil premium for every secondary school in London. It would advocate for the case (which could be powerful albeit not conclusive) that schools should spend a minimum of 10% of their Pupil Premium on arts and culture.

At the same time it would approach arts and cultural institutions (particularly publicly subsided ones) and encourage them to offer something of proven worth equivalent to that 10% figure. The schools that didn’t meet the 10% target and the arts institutions that were unable to make a worthwhile offer at that level would at least have to explain why they had decided not to be part of the 10PP programme. The impressive campaigning organisation What’s Next might apply some subtle grassroots pressure.

The offer could, of course, be flexible. Schools might choose to spend their 10PP on a number of offers. As some schools would want to spend more than 10PP and have something for all pupils the arts offer might be made in terms of ‘10PP from your school would be enough to buy two thirds of x’. Or to encourage greater ambition and collaboration, an arts institution might say it could do something for a cost equivalent to two or three schools combining their 10PP.

The organisations advocating 10PP and creating the virtual market place could also develop a kind of cultural Trip Advisor so that participating schools share their experiences and talk about what worked and was good value (and what didn’t and wasn’t).

My idea won’t melt the hearts of those who think arts and culture is of marginal value to young people’s attainment and development but it might just nudge a whole lot of schools who are receptive but not active to make the leap.

The idea might have some obvious flaw but in case it doesn’t my offer is that if any organisations in London think it’s got legs, I will host a meeting here at the RSA to discuss its viability and even chair it myself (I am normally very, very expensive …).