Welcome to the first newsletter edition of the new school year and welcome back to those of you working in the education sector – wishing all our colleagues a great start to the new term.
This month we will await signals from our new government of any changes to the direction of travel for Arts education, particularly given the new Prime Minister’s aims to develop new pathways for 14-to-16-year-olds. We are also still awaiting the announcement of who will be running the National Centre for Arts and Music Education; the Pupil Engagement Framework; and the Department for Education and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport cross-departmental advisory committee focused on arts education and enrichment in schools. We are also expecting the new National Curriculum to be out for consultation soon – so it’s set to be a busy autumn.
CLA has just published a new version of our Capabilities Framework. We have developed a Capabilities Framework for Employability to demonstrate that Arts subjects are fundamental to developing fully human capacities in an age increasingly dominated by artificial intelligence. Our seven evidenced capabilities have personal benefits for the child or young person, which lead to multiple employability benefits for the economy of today and of the future, across all sectors. We hope that this will be a valuable resource for colleagues in schools and colleges, and within the cultural sector.
CLA will also soon be publishing an updated 2026 version of its 2024 Blueprint for an Arts-Rich Education. Developed through cross-sector consultation, the Blueprint will be a guide to the system change required across the education and cultural sector and the Arts education workforce to meet the shared goal: enabling every child to access high-quality Arts experiences, in and outside of formal state education, in every postcode in England. We hope to publish this in October.
Meanwhile, our Latest News digest this month features news across the education and cultural sector:
- Exam results analysis – general trends and Arts take-up
- GCSE resits results data sparks debate
- Changes in DfE and DCMS ministerial roles and portfolios
- Pilot schemes to convert classrooms to community hubs
- Pupil attendance targets for all schools in England
- Universities and the challenge of the drop in international students
- A dramatic drop in number of graduate entry jobs
- A new report revealing that young people’s life satisfaction has fallen
- Freelance Champions appointed for the cultural sector
- Paul Hamlyn Teacher Development Fund open for applications
- AccessArt online event: Why all schools need to value the arts
We kick off the new school year with two Latest Thinking articles. Zoe Morris, Executive Headteacher of Chorlton High School, part of the Prospere Learning Trust in Manchester, sets the scene for the changing picture for Arts education in From Advocacy to Action. And in Belonging by Design, creative producer and consultant, Liza Vallance considers belonging, not just as an outcome of Arts education, but as one of the conditions that enables learning, creativity and participation to flourish.
In her Research Spotlight article this month, Professor Pat Thomson examines a study from the US which uses two key measures, grade point average (GPA) and dropout rates, to determine that Arts education benefits Black and Latinx (of Latin American descent) high school students more than it benefits White students
EDUCATION SECTOR
What did this summer’s exam results tell us about Arts subjects and general trends?
Arts subject GCSE and A Level results
We report in full on all Arts qualifications take up in the spring of each year when we have all the final and comprehensive available data, but in the meantime we scrutinise results every summer to look for key trends.
The Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) data on Arts subjects at GCSE in England (and AQA data for Dance) indicates that Drama, Music, and Performing and Expressive Arts all dipped again, but that Art & Design take-up increased. Dance increased but only by 34.
| Subject | 2025 | 2026 | % change |
| Art & Design | 206,598 | 211,369 | +2.31% |
| Dance | 7,263 | 7,297 | +0.46% |
| Drama | 52,471 | 51,914 | -1.06% |
| Music | 38,060 | 37,500 | -1.47% |
| Performing & Expressive Arts | 7,190 | 7,227 | +0.51% |
At A Level, we can see slight drops across the board for all Arts subjects, continuing the pattern of decline evidenced in our annual Report Cards. The Ofqual data on Arts subjects at A Level was as follows:
| Subject | 2025 | 2026 | % change |
| Art & Design | 40,280 | 39,620 | -1.63% |
| Dance | 959 | 974 | +.20% |
| Drama | 7,260 | 6,620 | -8.82% |
| Music | 4,850 | 4,580 | -5,57% |
| Performing & Expressive Arts | 930 | 940 | +1.07% |
You can see the government reporting on all qualifications results here.
General trends at GCSE
Across all subjects, Schools Week reported on the key trends in this year’s GCSE Data, the most striking of which was the regional gap in the top grades. The attainment gap between the best and worst performing regions has grown from 10.6% last year to 10.9%. Prior to the pandemic the figure was 9.3%. The proportion of top grades fell in the North East, West Midlands, South West, South East and East of England. The largest increase in top grades was in Yorkshire and the Humber. The North East has the lowest percentage of grade 7 and above at 17.7%.
Other key trends identified were as follows:
- Grades 7-9: The proportion of results at grade 7 to 9 stands at 23.1% which is only a tiny uptick from 2025, when the figure stood at 23%. The proportion of grade 9 results remained at 5.2%, the same as 2025.
- Grade 5+: The 5+ grade (considered a strong pass) rate has increased slightly from 55% last year to 55.5% this year.
- Maths and English: In maths the proportion of results at grade 7 and above (22.3%) and at grade 5 and above (53.8%) has increased. In 2025 the corresponding figures were 21.5% and 52.8%. The proportion on English language results at grade 5 increased by 0.8% this year but the proportion at grade 7 fell by 0.1%.
- Gender gap: The top grades differential between girls and boys narrowed from 5% more top grades for girls last year to 4.8% this year, remaining largely stable. The small increase in attainment for boys was in grades 7 and above.
- Subject data: The total number of entries stood at 5,840,185 up 1.1% on 2025. Statistics, Business Studies and Sociology all saw increases. Entries for Engineering, Computer Science and French all fell: -9.3%, -7.2% and -5.5% respectively. Spanish continued to be the most popular language.
General trends at A Level
Schools Week identified several broad trends in the results. Again, the most striking of these was the regional attainment gap: the gap between the highest and lowest performing regions has widened again this year. At grade A and above there is now a 9.6% point gap compared to 7.3% in pre-pandemic 2019. This year, the North East and East Midlands ranked lowest with the proportion of top A grades 23.1% in both regions. This compares to 32.7% in London and 31.5% in the south east.
As well as the regional gap, the gender gap has widened, and top grades increased this year:
- Top grades: The proportion of A and A* grades has increased slightly from 28.2% in 2025 to 28.3% this year. Before Covid this figure was 25.2%.
- A* grades: The proportion of A* grades achieved in England has risen by 2.1% at 9.6% compared to 9.4% last year. This is still much lower than the peak during Covid in 2021 at 19.1%
- Gender gap: Boys overtook girls in the proportion of top grades (A and above) for the first time last since 2019. This trend continued this year with 28.9% of grades issued to boys at A and above compared to 27.9% for girls. A* grades made up 10.1% of those issued to boys, compared to 9.1% for girls.
- Subject entries: Economics has seen a large rise in entries at 43,121 and entered the top five subjects, having sat 10th last year, replacing Business Studies. The others remain the same as last year. Maths has the highest number of entries at 95,044, followed by Psychology (95,044), Biology (60,978), and Chemistry (53,605). Politics and Law grew in popularity with increases of 11.9% and 10.5% respectively. English Literature saw the largest drop in entries, down 11%.
Schools Week also did a thorough analysis of which subjects had the most top grades. Psychology saw the largest increase in top grades among the most popular A Level subjects this year at 3.6%. Business Studies saw the biggest fall in top grades, of 3.1%. Art and design subjects, which saw the largest increases in top grades in 2025, saw a drop of 0.6%.
CLA COMMENT
The Schools Week coverage also revealed that almost 49% of grades issued to private school pupils were an A or above; in grammar schools this was 43%. The proportion of top grades was 27% for free schools; 25.6% for sixth form colleges; 23.5% for academies; 23% for council-maintained schools and 22% for secondary moderns.
This data, combined with the general data on the regional attainment gap, make clear the socio-economic factors at play, as evidenced across all Arts subjects in our 2025 and 2026 Report Cards. The North East, West Midlands have the fewest high grades across all subjects at A Level, just as our 2026 Report Card highlighted that they have the least Arts subject take-up. Our 2027 Report Card will go beyond the results day data to give you the detailed picture of the Arts entitlement gap in schooling in England.
GCSE English and Maths resits continue to be a problem
This year’s GCSE results have sparked widespread debate (again) about the number of pupils failing their resits in GCSE Maths and English. As reported by the BBC, the GCSE results data showed nearly one in four Maths and English GCSEs in England were taken by students aged 17 and older, mostly young people resitting exams they had previously failed.
Pass rates for students aged 17 and older in English and Maths are much lower than 16-year-old students taking the exams for the first time, bringing down overall GCSE grades for all ages across England, Wales and Northern Ireland as a result. Currently, many courses and jobs remain dependent on students securing GCSE passes in those subjects.
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders was reported saying that the fail/resit cycle was like “force feeding” students a “relentless diet of GCSE English and Maths. This limits their education and career options and is very likely to be a factor in the large number of young people who end up not in employment, education or training.”
The government faces further pressure over its policy requiring 16-19-year-olds without a grade 4 in English and Maths to continue studying the subject. In the Guardian, Lucy Powell, Secretary of State for Education, said the government would be sticking with plans for a new “stepping stone” qualification aimed at those who got a grade 2 or worse in their first attempt at GCSEs.
Powell described the current policy as “a hamster wheel” and said: “There’s got to be a better way to give young people the skills and confidence that they need to succeed, not just branding them a failure, and also allowing them to gain other qualifications that show they have a strong foundation in English and maths. So that’s why I want to bring in a new Level 1 qualification, so they’ve got a strong foundation in English and Maths that gives them that passport to go on for further study or an apprenticeship or a training place.”
But the plan, first announced in last year’s skills white paper, has been met with scepticism by experts and school leaders, who warned that the number of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) was likely to increase as long as GCSE failure rates remained high. The Department for Education’s consultation is positioning the new qualification as a “stepping stone” qualification as preparation for a later GCSE resit.
Paul Whiteman, head of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: “We have long called for an end to the current policy which forces students into dispiriting rounds of repeated, demotivating resits. What is needed are more appropriate and engaging alternatives to GCSEs in English and Maths at key stage 4 which enable students to study for qualifications that better suit their needs and aspirations.”
Coinciding with the results, a study from University College London (UCL) was published showing that forcing teenagers who fail GCSEs into multiple resits has a negative impact on their mental health. It compared the mental wellbeing of students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland who failed to reach a grade 4 or equivalent in Maths or English GCSEs – and found that only those in England, where resits are mandatory, showed significantly lower wellbeing.
CLA COMMENT
The Curriculum and Assessment Review interim report stated that “we think the expectation for study of maths and English should remain, but with greater nuance in measures to ensure that as many learners as possible can achieve positive outcomes.”
CLA has long advocated for more support for what the Association of School and College Leaders calls the “forgotten third” so we wholeheartedly agreed with this in March 2025 as the current system is disadvantaging too many young people. We agree with the Curriculum Review’s call for greater nuance in measures to ensure that as many learners as possible can achieve positive outcomes and hope that the government can work hard to find a solution to ensuring that this gloomy news on results day does not continue into the future.
As we await the final Milburn report, introducing measures and resit changes to support a potentially lost generation feels increasingly vital.
DfE confirms ministerial roles and portfolios
The government has now finalised the full list of ministerial portfolios in the Department for Education, with new responsibilities being added for tackling antisemitism, oversight of special needs and the creation of free schools. As well as Lucy Powell replacing Bridget Philipson as Education Secretary, as we reported last month, the only other personnel change was Olivia Bailey being replaced by Paul Waugh as Minister with responsibility for Early Education. Schools Week have provided a full list of the whole team’s responsibilities.
As well as her role overseeing school standards, school improvement and regional improvement (RISE), Schools Minister Georgia Gould will now oversee special schools (including independent special schools), school productivity, the Teaching Regulation Authority, relationships sex and health education (RSHE) and school admissions.
As well as early education, Paul Waugh has picked up responsibility for faith schools, school transport, independent schools, school uniforms, mental health support and the use of technology and AI.
Children and Families Minister Josh MacAlister will now deputise for Lucy Powell and be responsible for tackling antisemitism, free schools creation, out-of-school settings and fostering.
As well as her previous responsibilities, skills minister Jacqui Smith will focus on the NEET brief and the prime minister’s aims to develop new pathways for 14-16 year olds.
We reported on Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport changes in July – the department has responsibility for youth as well as culture and creativity, Ruth Mackenzie, since last year director of arts at the British Council, has been appointed an Arts Minister under Lisa Nandy at DCMS with a seat in the House of Lords. Mackenzie joins an expanded ministerial team with Ian Murray reappointed minister of state and Stephanie Peacock as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State to DCMS with responsibility for youth.
CLA COMMENT
Given the scale of the Prime Minister’s sweeping changes across government, is good to see that it’s not been entirely all change in the DfE, with the big changes only at the top and for early years. Georgia Gould has been the minister responsible many of the changes relevant to CLA following the Curriculum and Assessment Review and has a strong track record on supporting Arts education and creativity in her previous role as Leader of Camden Council. She holds responsibility for access to sport, arts and music in education, working with other departments.
We are still awaiting news of progress on establishing a joint DfE and DCMS working group following the recommendation of the government response to the Hodge review back in March. We hope that there might be news on this – and on the National Centre for Arts and Music Education – before too long. We were expecting news on the latter in June, and the Centre is meant to come into being this month.
Pilot schemes to convert classrooms to community hubs
The DfE will be running a pilot scheme to repurpose empty school building and classrooms into community assets. The policy aims to tackle the surplus of school spaces created by the long-term fall in the numbers joining primary and secondary schools, with a large number of closures in primary schools predicted by 2030.
The number of children in England under the age of 16 is expected to shrink by 6% over the next decade. Primary school pupil numbers have fallen by 85,000 since 2019 and are forecast to fall by a further 205,000 by 2028, according to the National Foundation for Education Research.
London has been the hardest-hit region, with the capital having nine of the 10 local authorities with the largest declines in primary school pupils. Islington, Lambeth and Southwark are expected to have the steepest declines in numbers over the next four years, while boroughs such as Camden already have falling demand for secondary school places.
The DfE has allocated £2.1m to the scheme and six councils have signed up to the pilot, with the DfE targeting areas with both high proportions of surplus places and a need for community facilities such as family hubs. Birmingham, Nottingham, Lincolnshire, West Sussex and the London boroughs of Croydon and Lambeth are in the initial group, with more expected to join after the scheme is launched in the autumn.
The DfE said the six councils have been “were selected from across England to reflect a mix of communities, helping government test different approaches to making the best use of surplus school space where it can have the biggest impact”.
Josh MacAlister, Minister for Children and Families, said: “As birthrates fall and pupil numbers change, this government is taking action … Through this pilot, we will give a new lease of life to empty classrooms by transforming them into youth clubs, family hubs and other local services – making sure that school buildings continue working for children, parents and communities for years to come.”
CLA COMMENT
This news reflects some sensible and practical decision making to address real demographic shifts. State schools are already community spaces, and some – although not all – have excellent Arts facilities, particularly in secondary. It’s good to see Birmingham on the list, given that our Report Cards highlight the low take-up of Arts subjects due to socio-economic factors in the West Midlands, and we hope that the pilot can consider how these school spaces might be deployed for youth and community Arts activities. Young people need things to do and safe places to go – might this new scheme help to address that need?
Pupil attendance targets for all schools in England
As reported by the BBC, every mainstream state school in England will be given their own target to improve pupil attendance, the government has confirmed.
Schools will also be encouraged to offer more clubs and activities on Fridays, to improve attendance at the end of the week. It comes as the most recent attendance data suggested school absence rates in England remained above pre-pandemic levels, with nearly one in five pupils missing at least 10% of school in the 2025/26 academic year. New Education Minister Paul Waugh said the new attendance targets would take each school’s local challenges into account, but that “every school has a role to play to improve attendance”.
The National Governance Association (NGA) reported that the “DfE are now issuing schools with AI-generated attendance improvement targets in the form of attendance baseline improvement expectation (ABIE) reports. These will be based on historical data, location, pupil needs and deprivation. Schools will start to receive indicative ABIEs for the 2025/26 academic year to help them prepare for when the initiative officially comes into force in September 2026.
The NGA has worked with the DfE to produce a guide to improving school attendance. It sets out governing board responsibilities and questions to ask in relation to developing an effective attendance strategy; regularly reviewing attendance data; and ensuring staff receive the training they need to improve attendance.
CLA COMMENT
Multiple educational tracking studies highlight a direct statistical link between high Arts involvement and school attendance. As we addressed in a Latest Thinking article in March of this year on how the Arts can support pupil engagement, attendance is deeply connected to engagement: research led by ImpactEd and ASCL among others has confirmed that it is helpful to combine attendance and engagement rather than separating them in terms of data. “Secondary pupils in the top quartile for engagement in the autumn term were 10 percentage points less likely to be persistently absent than those in the bottom quartile. Persistent absence, lateness and behavioural challenges are often visible symptoms of deeper disengagement.”
The challenge of the drop in international students for universities
We have reported frequently on the financial challenges confronted by universities. The latest news, as reported by the Guardian, is the collapse in applications from international students. Their report states that “University leaders are warning of financial turmoil in British higher education after new figures suggested a collapse in international student numbers would deprive the sector of vital income and undermine its future.”
High Education leaders have called on the government to rethink the levy on international student fees imposed under Keir Starmer, as a former universities minister warned there was a risk of a university “going under” because of the financial crisis.
While UK sixth formers enjoyed improved A Level results, and a record 194,800 English 18-year-olds were accepted by their first choice of university, vice-chancellors who spoke to the Guardian said it would not be enough to stave off further erosion in staff numbers and courses. Figures published by the Home Office show student visa applications to the end of July fell by 11% compared with the previous year. With summer visa applications coming before the start of the academic year in autumn, the gloomy figures mean many UK universities will experience significant losses if the trend continues, with some fearing international enrolments dropping by 30%.
Prof Shitij Kapur, the vice-chancellor of King’s College London, said the fall in international student numbers was “in line with the pessimistic expectations” and may also reflect a drop in postgraduate applications earlier this year: “The critical thing is what this cycle will entail, which does not become clear till about October. The simple rubric is that every five international students impact one university job. And these falling numbers will invariably impact the financial health and staff complement of universities”.
Libby Hackett, the chief executive of the Russell Group, said recent analysis showed that the decline in international students means the UK had lost out on a net economic benefit of nearly £3bn. Vivienne Stern, chief executive of the Universities UK group of vice-chancellors, said the student visa figures “should be a wake-up call” for policymakers.
CLA COMMENT
This fall is part of a wider picture of income decline for the higher education sector, and obviously we have been focused on what this has meant for Arts courses. The British Academy has published a new data map revealing a sharp and widespread decline in opportunities for university staff in the humanities, arts and social sciences in 2024/25, using evidence to track a decade of change in university staffing trends across these subjects.
And in July, the Guardian published analysis of 2024 data which revealed nearly 4,000 job cuts in Shape (the acronym for social sciences, humanities and arts). The majority were in non-Russell Group universities, which have lower entry requirements and recruit more socioeconomically disadvantaged students. But humanities cuts are not limited to one type of institution. The University of Exeter plans to cut 150 full-time posts and the University of Nottingham is in crisis, axing modern language and Music degrees.
CLA’s own data analysis focuses on schools, but we do track progression to HE in Arts subjects, and this year’s Report Card reveals that nine of the ten universities with the largest falls in the number of Creative Arts & Design domestic undergraduates are modern universities (formerly known as polytechnics). These play an outsized role in the UK in educating students from lower participation backgrounds, with 67% of all HE students from low participation neighbourhoods studying at modern universities. 65% of all Black university students study at modern universities.
The Arts entitlement gap is increasingly visible in HE. Pathways to creative careers depend on accessible and relevant further and higher education courses in the Arts, and this is also important for addressing the class barrier to the creative industries. These pathways also these provide a key pathway for future specialist teachers of Arts subjects.
Dramatic drop in number of graduate entry jobs
Graduate job vacancies in the UK have sunk to their lowest level since they started being tracked a decade ago. Just 8,383 jobs for people leaving university were advertised in July according to one recruiting website. You can read coverage in the Guardian here.
With entry-level jobs being threatened by AI, the only sectors showing increases in jobs for university leavers were travel, teaching and construction, Adzuna reported. Adzuna said sectors including healthcare, nursing, hospitality and logistics posted fewer vacancies, adding that the figures suggested that a recovery reported during the spring had reversed.
The number of jobs available in July was down 45% compared with July 2025 and the lowest since the company started gathering the data in 2016. In 2017 there were more than 55,000 graduate positions.
The number comes as 262,820 young people prepare to go to university in September, a record high that underlines the tough conditions facing graduates entering the job market. About 1 million young people in the UK were not in education, employment or training (NEET) in the first quarter of this year, according to the Office for National Statistics.
CLA COMMENT
We regularly report on the context of young people’s lives and challenges with accessing higher education and the job market. This 2026 data provides a stark snapshot of how AI is impacting the world of work and diminishing opportunities for graduates.
Now, more than ever, it will be the capabilities we set out in our Arts Education Capabilities Framework that are vital in empowering young people with the skills they will need to find work. The benefits that children and young people acquire through Arts subjects are agency, wellbeing, collaboration, communication, empathy, creativity and interpretation. These are the capabilities that can which lead to multiple employability benefits for the economy of today and of the future, across all sectors, not just the creative industries.
The Arts are fundamental to developing fully human capacities in an age increasingly dominated by artificial intelligence. A rich Arts education provides skills for life and
work and enables children and young people to thrive and to achieve.
New report shows young people’s life satisfaction has fallen
The Loneliest Generation: What it is like to grow up in England today, published by IPPR, shares findings from more than 150 young people surveyed. The study has found that, while adolescence is a period of profound opportunity, young people today no longer have the support they need to live fulfilling lives and become well-rounded adults. Growing up is now defined by disconnection creating a generation becoming more vulnerable, with worsening mental health increasingly hitting young people’s ability to be productive.
The headlines are that the number of young people with no close friends has increased five-fold since 2014; and that Gen Z are more isolated, more distressed and less productive than previous generations. IPPR calls for a new settlement for young people, to restore hope and opportunity.
The research found that the foundations of a good adolescence have eroded. A generation are coming of age in the shadow of a digital childhood, a pandemic, and the erosion of the services and spaces that once helped them navigate the journey to adulthood. Young people today have fewer close friends than they did 10 years ago, and the friendships they do have are less strong. One in 20 young people now have no friends at all. Poor mental health, meanwhile, is now a productivity crisis as much as a wellbeing one: the share of young people saying poor mental health means they have accomplished less has quadrupled since 2010–12.
Transitions to adulthood are blocked. The traditional indicators of early adulthood are all happening much later, leaving young people in a longer, hollower and more precarious adolescence. Buying and renting a house is harder, with the average age of a first-time buyer now 34 and nearly one in five young people spending half of their income on rent. Jobs and training are more difficult to find, with apprenticeship starts among 16–24-year-olds down by 40 per cent over the past decade and growing numbers of young people not earning or learning. Ever more young people are stuck in limbo: they are no longer children and yet are unable to access adult life.
Young people feel disconnected from themselves. Young people feel a loss of agency and self-esteem. They no longer feel they have the support they need to realise their big ambitions. When they reflect on their lives, they conclude they have little control over what happens next, with fewer opportunities to change course. They form identities online, like themselves less and feel less satisfied with their lives.
Young people feel disconnected from each other. Young people have fewer friends and a lack of spaces to build in-person connections. They feel like they belong less in school and are more likely tobe bullied there. ‘Doomscrolling’, a fundamentally solitary activity, has become the daily pastime of a generation.
Young people feel disconnected from wider society and can see that current health, education and support services are not structured to meet their needs. They are no longer confident in their futures, with the proportion expecting to become long-term unemployed trebling in a decade.
In conclusion, the report states “Today’s disconnection is the result of political choices made by adults in the name of neoliberalism. Our young people have grown up in a country reshaped by an ideology that professes that ‘there is no such thing as society’. The disconnection young people describe can trace its origins back to a shift away from collectivism and towards the privatisation and marketisation of public services and assets, the adoption of identity politics over the politics of inclusion, and a deference to unaccountable tech oligarchs. The solutions do not lie in changes to youth policy: a collective effort is required to offer young people a new settlement that reaches across their lives, on education, work, housing and health.”
CLA COMMENT
This report is based on a relatively small sample but chimes with other reports we covered in our early July edition, including the interim Milburn report in which Alan Milburn describes a generation detached from the labour market.
The aggregated findings from our Rapid Evidence Reviews show that agency and personal development are the most significant benefits of Arts learning: the sense that young people have a voice, and can make active choices. Our Arts Education Capabilities Framework sets out how Arts subjects build the agency, communication, collaboration and creativity that carry young people into adult life and work. We hope that our new version of the Framework focused on employability will be a valuable resource for colleagues in schools and colleges, and within the cultural sector.
Culture sector news: Freelance Champions appointed
Leila D’Aronville and Lizzie Crump have been appointed as the Government’s Freelance Champions. They will represent the sectors 703,000 freelancers within Government, including sitting on the Creative Industries Council.
The self-employed workforce is a critical component of the UK’s creative industries: in 2025, 28.5% of the UK’s 2.6 million-strong creative industries workforce were self-employed, almost double that of the rate for the wider economy (14.8%).
The appointees will support industry’s work to address the findings of the Good Work Review, a major review into working conditions across sectors, which highlighted issues with unpaid work, limited opportunities for professional development, and difficult working environments, as well as high levels of job satisfaction, flexibility and autonomy. Job quality for freelancers was marked as a particular concern.
The appointees are both freelancers themselves. They will be supported by Dave O’Brien, Professor of Cultural and Creative Industries at the University of Manchester, who joins the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on an academic secondment to provide research support.
CLA COMMENT
Freelance teaching artists are a vital part of the Arts teaching workforce, so we have a particular interest in their status, work conditions and remuneration: we want to see skilled freelance teaching artists be valued and properly resourced, and they should receive training to deliver high-quality work with children, young people and schools.
Our new Blueprint for an Arts-Rich Education will include detailed recommendations for teaching artists as part of the Arts workforce in schools, and within the cultural sector. It is helpful that Lizzie Crump has a background working with CLA so will have an understanding of the importance of freelance teaching artists as part of the Arts education workforce ecology. Look out for our recommendations for freelance teaching artists when we publish our Blueprint next month.
Paul Hamlyn Teacher Development Fund
Applications are now open for the Paul Hamlyn Teacher Development Fund which supports primary school teachers to create Arts-rich, equitable classrooms for all children to thrive and learn. Grants of up to £165,000 are available to support partnerships between Arts organisations and groups of between 6-10 primary schools across two academic years.
The Funds aims to:
- equip teachers to use arts-based approaches in the primary classroom
- support children to overcome barriers to learning
- enable schools to join a vibrant community made up of 450 schools UK-wide
- support teachers to gain the skills, knowledge and confidence to bring their lessons to life through the arts
You can read the FAQs; visit the Resource Hub; or apply here. Applications close on 11 November at 12 noon.
AccessArt: Why all schools need to value the arts – online event
AccessArt, one of the Art & Design subject associations, is running an online session in October to explore why the Arts are essential to every school, and how purposeful leadership can create the conditions for creativity to thrive across the whole school community.
The session is aimed at directors of curriculum, senior school leaders, headteachers, deputy heads and curriculum leads. The HMI subject lead and one of the CLA Co-Chairs will be exploring the wide-ranging benefits of an Arts-rich education and why it remains important for schools to prioritise the Arts. The session will also examine what conditions need to be in place in schools to create an environment for the Arts to really flourish, and address some of the common barriers.
AccessArt will also share insights into some of the capabilities and attitudes which an arts rich education can help develop, including greater inclusion, wellbeing and engagement.
This event will run from 4:00 to 5:00pm on Monday 5 October and is free to AccessArt members and non-members. You can book here.
