Schools White Paper - Response
The Crafts Council has responded to a Department for Education White Paper, The Importance of Teaching. Read our response below.
Background
The Crafts Council is England’s national development agency for contemporary craft.
It aims to build a strong economy and infrastructure for the contemporary craft sector, to increase and diversify the audience for contemporary craft and to champion high quality contemporary craft practice nationally and internationally.
The Crafts Council works to promote participation and learning, developing opportunities for interaction and informal engagement with craft. It supports craft makers’ professional development and builds the market for contemporary craft by running fairs and promoting export. It holds a significant collection of contemporary craft, which it makes available through touring exhibitions and loans. It also works to raise the profile of contemporary craft through critical debate and by building an evidence base that demonstrates the nature and value of craft.
The contemporary craft sector is part of a vibrant cultural and creative sector in the UK, which contributed 5.6% of the UK’s GVA in 2008 (source: DCMS). Nearly 35,000 people work as contemporary craft makers in the UK, and the whole craft sector contributes £3bn to the UK economy each year. Largely made up of self-employed makers and owners of SMEs, the sector has a significant role in the UK’s future economic landscape. The sector also has a number of characteristics noteworthy for Britain’s new industrial landscape. It is fastest growing amongst the young, which means it is well placed for further growth. New research commissioned by the Crafts Council shows that craft graduates are successful, entrepreneurial and socially mobile (1).
The Crafts Council welcomes the new Government’s position on practical learning and the repeated recognition from skills and education ministers of the vital social and economic contribution of practical skills including craft.
Response
The Crafts Council welcomes this opportunity to comment on the Department for Education’s schools White Paper The Importance of Teaching.
The paper mentions, albeit briefly, the independent review of music education, commissioned by Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education. We welcome the Government’s initiative to examine cultural learning and, along with many other cultural organisations, will eagerly await the broader suggestions about the delivery of cultural education the review. We hope that these suggestions acknowledge the educational benefits offered by all cultural forms.
As with music, craft has unique benefits; to prioritise one cultural form over others would be unhelpful. Not all children will take to music, neither all to craft, painting, or drama; one size does not fit all.
Craft like music can play a vital role in education, extending far beyond the most obvious benefits. It fosters creative thinking and innovative learning and research shows that developing haptic skills, be it with a guitar or a potter’s wheel, aids cognitive development. Craft skills also provide children with a firmer grasp of the 3-D world, allowing young people to experience how the world works in practice, to gain an understanding of materials and processes and to make informed judgments about abstract concepts. This in turn develops problem-solving skills which feed into all manner of professions including engineers, surgeons and software designers. And craft, like music and numerous other art forms can help to create links between school, home and work and between generations and communities.
The reintroduction of craft to the curriculum is a major strand of Crafts Council activity. We have a number of initiatives that help teachers to teach craft confidently to students, all supported by the Craft Action Network (CAN), which provides a forum and resources for educators. Initiatives include Craft Club that utilises the skills of the local community through the WI to teach young people yarn skills; and Firing Up which has been made possible with private funding from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Firing Up aims to reintroduce working with clay and get school kilns re-fired across the country working with Higher Education Institutes, their technicians, tutors and students
Reintroducing craft in the curriculum would contribute towards the supply chain for craft HE and FE courses and apprenticeships and ultimately unlocking the potential of the sector.
We hope that music, craft, art, drama and many other important cultural forms emerge from the Henley Review as important elements of the curriculum. There for their own sake and on their own merit – all offering something different but equally valid to our young people.
Rosy Greenlees, Executive Director, Crafts Council
(1) Hunt W, Ball L and Pollard E (2010): Crafting Futures: a study of the early careers of crafts graduates from UK higher education institutions. London, Crafts Council. Read the executive summary of Crafting Futures here
