Preface

• motivate and support teachers to develop ambitious art projects
• increase opportunities for pupils to explore and interpret the world through visits to galleries and contact with artists and art works

Background to the Project

In recent years, the National Lottery has allocated many millions of pounds towards developing new galleries and museums, including space and facilities for education. For example, the Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded more than £100 million to support a range of educational activity across all heritage sectors. Private trusts and foundations have also invested significant amounts. The Clore Duffield Foundation has provided over £8 million specifically to develop education areas and facilities - 'creative spaces' - within new or renovated galleries and museums, large and small.

However, the Clore Duffield Foundation has become increasingly concerned that the cultural and educational sectors have few guidelines on what these creative spaces should be like in terms of design, location, equipment, management and use. As a result, many creative spaces do not fulfil their potential or measure up to the innovative approaches to education now being tried out in some galleries and museums.



'My ideal sink is: a deep, ceramic butler sink with a big draining board ... raked so that everthing drains away.'
Cornelia Parker
Artist


For example, a survey for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (published in the report, A Common Wealth: museums in the learning age, David Anderson, DCMS, 1997 & 1999) revealed the limited education facilities in the majority of museums. Only 36% had a general teaching room and less than 10% had a practical art or photo-graphy studio or a children's gallery. Crucially, fewer than half of museums carried out any evaluation of their galleries, teaching programmes, publications or other education provision.

Schools also have problems with creative spaces for art activities. Accommodation overall in about 60% of primary schools falls outside the schools inspectorate Ofsted's definition of 'good', and in about one in ten it is 'unsatisfactory'. A quarter of secondary schools have 'unsatisfactory' or 'poor' accommodation. According to Ofsted annual reports, art provision is particularly vulnerable when a school's accommodation is inadequate. For example, in 2000/1 'accommodation and learning resources continue to have weaknesses in about one in five [secondary art] departments'. The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) has concluded that currently half the country's 'school stock' (buildings) needs replacing and is 'unsuitable for modern school use'.

Between 2001 and 2004, the DfES is allocating £8.7 billion to local education authorities and Private Finance Initiative (PFI) projects to provide additional pupil places and to recoup years of under-investment through new, expanded or renovated schools. According to the government's white paper Schools Achieving Success (Cm 5230, 2001), over the next three years 650 schools will be 'replaced or substantially remodelled' and 7,000 schools will undergo 'major building work'. A further 800 are being renovated through PFI agreements. Altogether, that is around a quarter of all schools.

The government's intention is 'to design and create school buildings suitable for a transformed and diversified education service' with 'new types of classroom to improve the learning experience'.

There are other positive moves. In October 2000, the government's Better Public Buildings Group issued a set of principles to ensure that public buildings would be 'attractive, aesthetically pleasing ... fit for purpose and represent good value for money' (Better Public Buildings: a proud legacy for the future, PP340, DCMS). In his foreword, Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote that: ' ... we know that good design provides a host of benefits. The best-designed schools encourage children to learn.'

This positive approach is being reflected in such national, but non-governmental, projects as School Works, which is looking at how 'to build, renovate and use school buildings in ways which raise educational achievement and support a culture of lifelong learning in local commu-nities'. A second initiative by the Sorrell Foundation, Joinedupdesignforschools, is exploring the potential of partnership between schools and the design community - showing how good design can improve the quality of life in schools, with pupils working as clients, and looking at the educational value of the process of design and how it can inspire creativity in young people. School Works has now been taken up by the DfES.



'How wonderful if clearing up was fun - I would love one of those sinks that lights up when water is poured in!'
Karen Eslea
Education and Community Officer
Turner Centre, Margate


The recommendations made by these initiatives in two reports, Learning Buildings (School Works, April 2002) and Design for Learning (Demos, 2001), also have relevance for a fresh approach to designing and using creative spaces in schools, galleries and museums.

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) is piloting projects on learning environments to encourage creativity. The Creative Partnerships scheme, developed by the DCMS and the Arts Council of England (ACE), is targeting schoolchildren in 16 areas in England to provide them with exciting opportunities to experience the arts and creativity at first hand. The scheme brings together schools, local authorities and creative organisations with an investment of £40 million over the next two years. The government's one-off Space for Sports and Arts Programme is providing up to £130 million towards improving sports and arts facilities in some 300 primary schools in areas across 65 local education authorities.

To date, 73 projects involve wholly or predominantly arts facilities, of which around a third have an explicit visual arts function.

However, when new schools are built or existing ones renovated, areas for creative work tend to be marginalised or poorly conceived. The DfES has issued detailed guidance on the design and equipping of secondary schools, including art accommodation. (There is no similar guidance for primary schools.) Yet, apart from the statutory requirements for health, safety and disabled access, guidelines often do not survive the journey to the reality of the school environment. The range of teaching spaces for art varies greatly between schools. Too many art teachers have to make do with inadequate and often non-dedicated accommodation, equipment and other resources.

In addition, apart from the DfES guidelines and the architectural press, there is a meagre network of information or exchange of good practice on designing and constructing the right sort of schools and creative spaces within them.

For example, there is little or no collaboration between Local Education Authorities or dissemination of the good practice being developed in the 28 designated Arts Colleges specialising in the visual arts.

Our concern is that the government's new programme of school renewal will miss a vital opportunity to rethink and revitalise the creative spaces for visual arts work and exploration.

The teachers, pupils, and gallery and museum education staff who use, or will use, the spaces that all these government and other initiatives will create have a wealth of knowledge and experience about what works and what does not. They are the people who hold crucial information on the right creative spaces. And yet they have been, and are being, rarely consulted. Nor are they able to help make the key decisions on building and equipping the spaces. Until now.


'a separate sink to put all the stuff in and one to wash paintbrushes and things, and one to wash your hands in.'
Lindsey Martin, age 11
Director, Room 13
Caol Primary School, Fort William