The Teacher-Artist Exchange is a place-based programme in Letchworth Garden City bringing together seven schools with the Broadway Gallery (a part of Letchworth’s Heritage Foundation) and uses visual art to support social, emotional and mental health outcomes. Sarah Golding, Head of Arts, Culture, and Heritage at the Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation, provides insight into the strategic significance of the Teacher Development Fund for all involved.
As the Teacher-Artist Exchange in Letchworth Garden City enters its final year, its impact is being felt far beyond the individual classrooms involved. What began as a teacher CPD programme has evolved into work that now shapes the wider approach of Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation — a place‑based community benefit organisation responsible for stewarding the world’s first Garden City. The programme’s impact has fostered a shared way of thinking about learning, leadership and collaboration, rooted in place.
The Teacher-Artist Exchange was designed in response to local feedback from schools. Dialogue with Letchworth headteachers highlighted growing pressure in classrooms, reduced space for reflection, and a need for professional learning that could support children’s confidence, wellbeing and inclusion. Rather than offering a pre‑designed solution, the programme created the conditions for teachers and artists to work together in long‑term, inquiry‑led partnerships, positioning schools as co‑designers rather than recipients.
As our CEO Graham Fisher recently reflected, the impact has been both practical and personal, with teachers feeling more confident to take creative risks, classrooms becoming more collaborative and emotionally responsive, and pupils — particularly those with additional needs — flourishing:
“Through the Teacher‑Artist Exchange, our local schools are embedding the arts into everyday teaching and making a demonstrable impact. What really strikes me is that this isn’t just about art — it’s about building confidence, improving wellbeing and nurturing curiosity.”
For Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation, the programme has also prompted deeper reflection on our role as stewards of the world’s first Garden City. Letchworth was founded on the belief that quality of life, wellbeing and learning are collective responsibilities. Through the Teacher-Artist Exchange, we have been able to embody these values, using the programme to explore what it means to act as an anchor organisation for place‑based educational change: convening partners, holding reflective space, and building trust over time. Broadway Gallery, part of the Foundation’s cultural provision, has been central to this work. By offering neutral ground away from the classroom, it has created space for headteachers, teachers and artists to think together — not about short‑term outputs, but about long‑term change. This has enabled relationships between schools to deepen, strengthening a local professional network that extends beyond the life of the programme.
Working within an enquiry‑led approach has required all partners to let go of certainty, challenge assumptions and adapt as learning emerged. This has built confidence to work more flexibly, valuing one another’s professional knowledge and recognising individual assets and expertise as part of a wider, interconnected learning ecology across the town.
Crucially, the Teacher-Artist Exchange has supported headteachers to think collectively about creative practice as strategy, signalling a shift from isolated innovation to embedded change. Creative approaches are now informing curriculum design, influencing wellbeing frameworks and shaping whole‑school priorities. As one headteacher reflected:
“Our overarching policies and curriculum statements will all need rewriting. That will be the legacy of the programme.”
This relational, place‑based work has brought the Foundation a deeper understanding of the systems that shape classroom practice and of children’s wider learning experience in terms of wellbeing. This insight now informs how we design cultural learning across the town — not simply as projects delivered to schools, but as long‑term partnerships shaped with them, aligned to shared values and local need.
Our organisational learning is also extending beyond the Gallery’s remit, reaching into the new outdoor learning programme taking shape at our community farm. Inspired by the inclusive approaches developed through the Teacher-Artist Exchange, the team is exploring how nature‑based activities can support inclusive curriculum learning. This work draws on strategies developed through the Teacher-Artist Exchange and is being shaped in close partnership with Letchworth teaching professionals. As Stuart Sapsford, Executive Director for Communities, Culture and Heritage, noted:
“The Teacher‑Artist Exchange has been as much a learning journey for us as an organisation as it has been for teachers. It’s influenced how we work with partners and how we think about learning beyond the classroom. As a result, we’ve strengthened our approach across different settings and created more connected, inclusive opportunities for local children and young people through culture, nature and place.”
The Teacher-Artist Exchange has given the Foundation a vital opportunity to deepen and refine our understanding of how long‑term cultural and educational change can be nurtured and sustained. By holding space for enquiry rather than driving predetermined outcomes, and by investing time in trusted dialogue and shared exploration, the programme has clarified where our infrastructure and convening role are most effective. These insights will shape how we approach cultural learning across the town, as an evolving ecosystem grounded in place, partnership and trusted collaboration.
Professor Tanya Ovenden-Hope, TDF Advisor and Professor of Education/Dean of Place and Social Purpose at Plymouth Marjon University, shares her reflections on the Teacher Development Fund’s TeachMeet 2026.
Led by Cleveland Road Primary School in Redbridge in partnership with five local schools and Eastside Education Trust, ‘Who Are We?’ used poetry and spoken-word to celebrate pupils’ diversity and identity and to support cross-curricular learning. In this post, Fliss Gush, Head of Programmes and Engagement for Eastside, reflects on their Teacher Development Fund journey and outlines their aspirations for the future of the collaboration.
