FEATURE: CULTURAL EDUCATION
The importance of place-based arts and culture initiatives in areas of disadvantage
Why does the National Literacy Trust adopt a place-based approach to arts and culture initiatives? We work to improve the reading, writing, speaking and listening skills in the UK's most disadvantaged communities, where one in three people have literacy problems. Our Hubs are place-based initiatives, created to
bring together a community and local partners around a focus of literacy. Literacy skills are the very bedrock of social mobility and low literacy severely impedes a person’s health, wellbeing and life chances. Our Hubs raise literacy levels through behaviour and systems change, increasing access to books, literacy and cultural activities, community activation and an overarching campaign. In 2013, with financial support from the
I
n our final piece this month on cultural education Jonathan Douglas CBE, Chief
Executive of the National Literacy Trust discusses why tailored, place-based arts and cultural initiatives are so important in boosting the literacy of people living in the most disadvantaged areas. This follows the announcement that the charity has been awarded funding from Arts Council England to extend the literary and cultural activity the charity does within its 14 Hub areas across the UK through an initiative called Connecting Stories.
Booker Prize Foundation, we launched our first Hub in Middlesbrough. We now run 14 Hubs across the country: Bradford, Hastings, North Yorkshire Coast, Peterborough, Redcar, Stoke, Doncaster, Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham, Black Country, Swindon, and Blackpool. Low literacy holds a person back at every stage
of their life. As a child they won't be able to succeed at school, as a young adult they will be locked out of the job market, and if they become a parent, they won't be able to support their own child's learning. This intergenerational cycle makes social mobility and a fairer society hard to achieve. We see reading and writing skills and behaviours as being cultural and social, not just the product of schools and colleges, and so we
32
www.education-today.co.uk
recognise that they are the product of cultural, community and economic factors.
Why we want to engage the arts and cultural sector in place-based working As teachers know, the arts are a fantastic way of inspiring young minds outside of school and opening up their world views. It’s important that everyone feels as though the arts are for them, especially in their hometowns. Every community has its own unique, rich cultural histories, spaces and resources. We want to do more with these to widen access to the arts and culture sector for local residents. Key to this is the brokering of links and
resources from publishers and authors local to the areas. We are proud to have 18 of the largest publishers committed to our Hubs as a result of the Publishers Association’s Literacy Project. The funding from Arts Council England for Connecting Stories will enable us to develop further partnerships with publishers and form an essential link between the publishing world and disadvantaged communities. In 2019, our research found that pupils who
experienced an author visit to their school were twice as likely to read above the expected level for their age and more likely to enjoy reading and writing than those who did not. However, we also found that only 1 in 4 pupils had an author visit that year, and those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds were most likely to miss out.i We know that teachers have their plates absolutely full especially following such a
December 2020
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44
