The Arts in Schools - Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

arts have a substantial contribution to make to the educationof all children and young people, the curricula of all schoolsshould have a clear arts component, properly justified andplanned. Second, insofar as the arts have functions and characteristicsin common, it is not separate policies for each of thearts which are needed first, but a general policy for the artswhich relates them all to the purposes of the whole curriculum.103 The In Chapter 3 we discussed the need for the curriculum to beneed for related to the cultural setting of the school. To the extentspecifics that it is, the specific contributions of the arts within itwill vary from one school to the next. So too will the particularconstraints to be overcome in putting policy intopractice. An effective policy must take account of actualneeds and circumstances — available staff, spaces, parentalattitudes and so on — in the school in question. In all schools,however, we would want to see an emphasis on co-ordinationand continuity in arts provision.104 Co- There are three reasons for suggesting that specialists inordination different art forms co-operate in matters of policy. First,provision for the arts is to do with the whole ethos of theschool. Where the general climate is favourable, all of thearts seem to flourish. Changes are more likely to be broughtabout through staff working together to solve commondifficulties. Second, there are many opportunities for jointschemes of work involving music, dance, drama, visual artsand the rest — both as part of the daily curriculum and alsofor specific projects and events. This kind of co-operation canenrich the cultural life of the school in general. Third, providingfor the emerging and diverging interests and abilitiesof pupils requires co-operation in staffing and timetabling,especially where resources are becoming more limited.105 Con- For many pupils the arts become optional in the 4th and 5thtinuity year of secondary school when the run up to examinationsbegins in earnest. This can leave them with very little experienceof the arts. The pupil who has 40 minutes of drama perweek, for example, will have had only 12 school days ofdrama — dispersed over three years — before giving it up.We believe that provision for the arts should be made throughoutthe secondary school independently of examinationoptions. The logistics will, of course, require very carefulattention. This underlines the need for an overall policy ofprovision.106 An arts A policy for the arts in the secondary school will need topolicy cover the following:66