Save the future of creativity in schools
The English Baccalaureate (EBacc) threatens the very future of creative subjects - like Music, Art, Design & Technology, Drama and Dance. By missing them off its list of core areas children must study, the Government is undermining their place at the heart of learning. Here below I have copied the template letter from http://www.baccforthefuture.com/index.html You can copy this letter into a word processor document, print it, and then post it to your local MP. Be sure to remember to fill in the text in the red areas. I’m going to draw a letter and send it off!
{name of MP}
House of Commons
Westminster
London
SW1A 0AA
Dear {name of MP},
Please include creative subjects in the English Baccalaureate
I am deeply concerned by the omission of creative subjects from the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) league table and ‘full EBacc’ certificate.
As it stands at the moment, the EBacc places significant pressure on schools to focus on just five ‘pillars’ of study: maths, English, sciences, languages (including Ancient Greek and Latin) and humanities (defined as just history and geography).
These are important, but the omission of creative subjects threatens a broad and balanced education (the International Baccalaureate for example includes a sixth creative pillar).
It also puts our creative economy and the creation of jobs in that sector at risk.
This is why the CBI and Creative Industries Council have expressed concern at the absence of any creative subject from the five pillars.
This is why over 40 organisations from across the creative sector are supporting the Bacc for the Future campaign which advocates a sixth pillar of creative subjects for the EBacc.
Please could you raise these concerns with the Secretary of State for Education and - if the EBacc reforms do go ahead - secure the place of creative industry relevant subjects in a sixth pillar of study such as ‘art and design, dance, drama, design technology, film studies and music.’ This is what the Government’s own Henley Review recommended.
I look forward to your reply.
Yours sincerely,
{your name}
Deaf Day Animation
Beauty is the First Test.
Put geometry, tessellation and modular patterning into practice. Learn how to crochet stitches in repeat to make a six sided shape. Once you have mastered a crochet hexagon, these can be repeated and made in multiples to form a larger fabric, a mathematical blanket! Practice joining some of the shapes together on a collective piece, and take home your newly crafted polygons!
Thursday 11th October, 7pm -9pm. £30.
Please contact the Pump House Gallery to book your place.
OOOOOh Art
As a direct, literal interpretation, I created 4 of the 5 rings to reflect the Olympic values. Through the process of knitting, once initial stitches are established, it is not complicated to produce, but like a marathon: determination and perseverance are needed to keep going to reach the end, improving on a personal best. I have stripped the same 5 colours together within each ring to show integration, different patterns to show diversity, and yet also equality as all the rings are the same. At Earlham Primary School in Wood Green, I worked with two classes of thirty pupils to create the situation of a Knitting Circle, a gathering of knitters, and with these groups, to foster the growth of friendships and a greater collective skill set. Like a relay race, my passing on my knitting skills to these classes of children, they are taking on the Olympic values as they develop their own hand crafts, each making a stitch, a line, or even a whole square of knitting, at their own personal best to contribute to make as a collaborative effort, the last of the 5 knitted rings.
The exhibition will run from the 25th July to 23rd September 2012 at Bruce Castle Museum, Tottenham.
OOOOOH Art is part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad.
http://www.haringey.gov.uk/ooooohart
Photo by Roelof Bakker. www.rbakker.com
Forest Fest 2012
