Creative Schools is about shifting the focus onto how best to inspire and motivate your teachers and the students in their care to produce the results schools want.

We aim to make it simple for schools to get involved.

We are offering FREE membership (with a value of £500+) and match funding towards a project to up to 10 schools in 2022 .

Membership is open to all primary schools, secondary schools, SEND schools and FE colleges in six East London boroughs supporting leaders to access the best creative opportunities, training, and creative curriculum support from an inspirational range of creative organisations, saving staff time, and helping you to access projects that meet your needs and ambitions, or to commission something bespoke.

How Creative Schools Works

  1. School Meetings with our Schools Brokerage Consultant or Programme Manager to discuss your needs and ambitions
  2. Ideas and Proposals: Cultural Partners respond to your brief with existing or bespoke project ideas.
  3. Commission: Schools receive up to £250 in funding from us and support to commission the right project, without a million emails!
  4. Planning: Creative Schools connects schools and partners to plan the project(s).
  5. Delivery: The project and/or intervention is delivered
  6. Evaluation: Creative Schools supports organisations and schools to evaluate impact. Key data feeds into Creative Schools evaluation, an impact report for school leaders, and can help you achieve Artsmark.

What We Offer Schools

  • Innovative Solutions – Innovative ideas for tackling the challenges on your School Development Plan
  • The Right Projects – Creative Schools helps you access the projects or interventions that best meet your needs, with a tailored menu of options from our leading cultural partners
  • Match Funding (up to £250 per school) to commission projects through our network of partners
  • Pool Resources and deliver projects across a cluster of schools or Academy Trust to strengthen collaboration
  • Keeping things Simple – We gather all the info about costings and logistics in one go, saving teachers time and workload!
  • FREE CPD for teachers –Free online training opportunities and teach meets every term with expert insights into the trends and focus in cultural education and practical skills you can take back to your school
  • A network of cultural education leaders in east London and beyond and the chance to make lasting connections.
  • Annual Symposium – (2 tickets allocated per school with a value of £75 each) The Symposium is an all-day event (held in Autumn Term 2021) combining networking, insights from arts, funding, and education experts and a range of workshops.
  • Artsmark Support – We can support you to deliver your Artsmark ambitions

 

Example Projects

Case Study – A busy Newham secondary school empowers youth voice and peer collaboration 

Sarah Bonnell wanted to take part in innovative ‘action learning’ and research. They partnered with Sound Connections, Wired4Music and Arts Award Consultant, Francesca Gkotsi, to deliver a summer showcase planned and delivered by pupils. The school achieved better teamwork, stronger peer relationships with older pupils mentoring year 7s, and improved resilience and flexibility. 260 pupils gained accreditation through Arts Award as part of the project.

How to get involved?

  • Register your interest by filling in the form below
  • The membership is FREE but in order to receive the match funding the school needs to match or exceed £250 toward the project.
  • We encourage groups of 3 or more schools registering together so they can combine funds
  • We’ll get in touch to confirm your registration and arrange a meeting.
  • We know that you have a difficult and demanding job. We’re here to make it as easy as possible for you.

Email us at: francesca@creativeschools.london

Fill out our Expression of Interest Form

What teachers are saying…

Really helpful and a good way for schools to see what projects are available all in one go, and then pick what would be most helpful to their school. All without having to send a million emails.
Newham teacher on Creative Schools brokerage

The Creative Schools network has not only inspired us to broaden the Arts activities that we participate in at Churchfields Junior but extended opportunities for our students to work with others across East London in a creative way, providing unique experiences for them all.  Joining the network is well worth the additional expenditure and something that we would highly recommend to colleagues.
Wendy Thomas, Headteacher, Churchfields Juniors, Redbridge

The Symposium was absolutely amazing and me and my colleagues were blown away.  We had such good fun and it really ignited the spark for us and reminded me why I was so keen to be part of Creative Schools.
Redbridge teacher on Creative Schools Symposium

At a time of great change within the school system, my feeling is that the arts are becoming marginalised and undervalued. Things such as Artsmark open a dialogue with schools and people in the wider creative sector, as opposed to the national curriculum which is very much a conversation within education.
Ryan Mclelland, The Bridge School, Islington, on achieving Artsmark Platinum