Impact case study database

“To be an ArtScaper you have to change, change yourself and change your community”

(Heinrich, 8, Student)

"this is a story about how children are wondernauts; of how art and making can change minds and lift hearts .. It's a chronicle of the ongoing, unfurling adventures of the imagination in one place, with one group, which ripples outwards in powerful ways.”

(Robert MacFarlane, multi award winning writer, Cambridge Fellow and patron of Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination, quoted in the book, ArtScapers: Being and Becoming Creative, 2020)

Between 2016-2020, project partners Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination (CCI) worked with Sayers to deliver the ArtScapers programme, as outlined in the ‘The Arts and Education Strategy for the North West Cambridge Public Art’ (2015) via three schools in a new urban district in North West Cambridge called Eddington. Drawing on Sayers’ creative activism pedagogy for empowering communities [R4], artists engaged with over 1500 children, teachers, families and local community members.

The transformative effects of the ArtScapers programme on creative practitioners, schools and the community is described here;

• “[P]articipating artists have seen their research and creativity expanded in ways that have added richness and depth to their own thinking” (Fabienne Nicholas, Head of Consulting, Contemporary Arts Society) [S1]

• “…the surprising outcome of this work is that a new community is emerging out of the creative process of engagement” (Susanne Jasilek, ArtScapers Artist in Residence) [S2]

• ‘”[ArtScapers] ..has become an ‘invaluable aspect of the Cambridge Development project … [that has] begun to craft a shared history for NW Cambridge” (Gabby Arrenge, Project Evaluator and MPhil Student Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge) [S3]

As an exemplar of the potential for arts education to change lives and in the context of what the journalist and arts education advocate, Melissa Benn, describes as an ‘unimaginative turn in education policy’ in recent years, ArtScapers has led campaigners and political influencers, including Rob Hopkins (founder of the Transition movement); Dame Fiona Reynolds (Master, Emmanuel College and former Director General of the National Trust); Kevin Jones (Education Adviser and Writer, Headteacher St John’s College School (1990-2016); Tony Juniper (CBE, Environmentalist and Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge MP) to acknowledge the significance of the programme in an ongoing campaign to promote creative forms of learning and reform the education system [S4].

1.ArtScapers programme improves children’s behaviour and sense of wellbeing, resulting in changes to the whole school curriculum at Mayfield Primary School in Eddington

In 2019, Mayfield Primary School created ‘A manifesto for ArtScaping’ which the school carry with them when embarking on new projects: “As ArtScapers we want to: Be free, Imagine anything, Have fun, Know anyone can do it, there are no wrong answers, Share and talk, Not rush, Try things out and experiment – make a mess, See that art is everywhere, Keep trying, Move around, be comfortable, Be brave and trust” [S4].

Paula Ayliffe, the headteacher at Mayfield Primary (one of the three local schools in Eddington involved in ArtScapers) testifies to the benefits of the programme on the whole school community; “[N]ow in our fourth year of collaboration: our curriculum, our staff, our children and their families, have embraced ArtScapers in a way that I longed for, but in reality didn’t really expect...the well-being of us all has improved”. Reflecting on the effect of ArtScapers at Mayfield School, Ayliffe affirms: “Children are getting on much more quickly with whoever they are asked to work with; completely different from when we started. Opportunities for everyone to express themselves more creatively has also helped to improve the quality and quantity of writing” [S5].

The positive effects of ArtScapers on children at Mayfield Primary encouraged Aycliffe to make changes to the whole school curriculum including the introduction of a weekly outdoor learning session called ‘Out and About’. According to Ayliffe, “.. [L]ow level behavioural issues in these sessions has improved as the adults start to trust the children more”, a benefit that she attributes to ArtScapers: “I can’t emphasise this enough, we would not have been able to even contemplate something like this had we not had the experience of working with arts organisations and alongside artists. ArtScapers has been pivotal for us” [S5].

2.ArtScapers re-engages teachers with their professional practice and leads to the delivery of individualised arts provision

As a result of ArtScapers, and the subsequent ‘Out and About’ initiative, teachers at Mayfield are now allowed to deliver their own individualised arts provision in and outside of the classroom, where they “are encouraged to be brave and experiment .. They are encouraged to not just take a lesson outside that could be taught inside, they are encouraged to do something different” [S5]. The teachers say that this has had the effect of reminding them “of the qualities and essence of teaching that drew them into the profession in the first place” [S6].

3.ArtScapers encourages local parents to engage in school activities

Local parents were encouraged to join in with the children, teachers and the school as ArtScapers and have described the benefits they attribute to the ArtScapers approach; “Having and giving alternatives to be more free … and a space for exploration. It’s like looking at the same place with different eyes” [S7]. Inspired by their experience and disappointed that only two classes per year had been able to go ArtScaping with the CCI as part of the North West Cambridgeshire funded programme, parents asked the school PTA to fundraise for an ArtScaping day for the whole school. This resulted in a special ArtScapers day in March “when 360 children walked to the Storey’s Field Centre in Eddington for a day of Waves, Arcs and Sparks inspired by the work of Cambridge Scientist Hertha Marks Ayrton.” According to Ayliffe, these schools-based arts practice community engagement activities “intrinsically linked our families to Eddington” and built a stronger sense of cohesion between the school, families and the community [S5].

Corroborating Ayliffe’s statement, Arenge, an MPhil student at the University of Cambridge who evaluated the project after its first year, writes “I believe that ArtScapers have become an invaluable aspect of the Cambridge Development project. They have become models for how to build a creative community within a changing community. In just a few months, they have begun to craft a shared history for NW Cambridge, which is a narrative that I hope will continue to inform and feed the growth of this place as buildings materialise, residents relocate, and the community flourishes over the next ten years” [S4].

| || | --- | --- | | Fig. 1. The original North West Cambridgeshire site of Mayfield School in 2016 (left) and with text from the ArtScapers Manifesto transposed onto the site (right). |

4. ArtScapers establishes Mayfield School as a centre for creative pedagogy and informs national debate about the transformative potential of arts education

Melisa Benn, writing the Foreward to a Forum article on ‘Creative Activism’, asserts that changing the whole school curriculum and committing to creative practice and outdoor learning, as Mayfield Primary has done in response to ArtScapers methodology, is significant in the context of the systematic national decline of arts education in schools [S9]. In a climate in which innovative pedagogic practices are being eroded and in some instances eradicated from the state school curriculum in England, the radical steps that Mayfield Primary have taken to reshape the curriculum have established the school’s reputation as frontrunners in creative education methods.

Following their involvement in ArtScapers, Mayfield Primary School leaders and students have contributed to national debates about the importance of creative education and the future of arts education policy in England. In May 2019, Ayliffe, children from the school, Ruth Sapsed, (Director of CCI) and Sayers (Goldsmiths) were invited to speak about ArtScapers at a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Art, Craft and Design in Education. Their presentation helped inform the APPG’s thinking on how ‘out-of-the-classroom and/or community experiences in the visual arts strengthen/impact on what subsequently happens in schools for children & young people, for teachers, and for curriculum models’. Attendees included representatives from educational advisory bodies (NSEAD, CHEAD); cultural institutions (Barbican); arts charities (The Arts Society, Heritage Craft Association); the artist (Rob and Roberta Smith); MPs (Tracy Brabin MP and Stephen Timms MP) and Lord Clancarty (Nicholas Le Poer Trench) [S8]. The Chair and Secretary of the APPG, Sharon Hodgson MP and Susan Coles subsequently wrote to the ArtScapers team to confirm: “It was very important to share the work of ArtScapers at the meeting in Westminster […] to inform current and future policy makers of the relevance and impact of art education outside the classroom” [S10].