TDF Associate Greg Klerkx shares insights from those involved in the programme and reflects on the impact of the Teacher Development Fund on artists, organisations and the wider sector.
When I was 15, the Atlanta Contemporary Dance Company came to my suburban Detroit high school for a short residency. I was on the technical team of our school theatre and so worked closely with the company’s tech staff and stage managers, who treated us like partners, not children; I had less interaction with the dancers, but their focus and professionalism likewise stuck in my mind. It was perhaps the first time that I understood it was possible to have a career in the arts.
That said, the residency never extended beyond a handful of school-wide performances and masterclasses for students taking theatre and dance classes. After perhaps two or three days the company left, and while its presence lingered with arts-involved students like me, for the larger school – and its teaching and learning culture – the visit quickly faded from memory.
When it comes to ‘external’ artists engaging with schools, my experience those many years ago reflects a model that largely survives intact today. Very often, artists and arts companies visit schools under the banner of enrichment; critically, this engagement is often focused on direct interaction with students, far less so with teachers. This approach can leave a powerful impression on some children, but the broader potential of the arts to support teaching and learning is too often left on the proverbial table, both by schools and by arts organisations.
As someone who’s been part of the UK arts-education scene for more than two decades – as co-founder of an arts organisation and as a trainer of creative practitioners – it’s clear to me that the Teacher Development Fund (TDF) model is changing how schools think about engaging with artists. But now that the programme has involved more than 65 arts and cultural organisations across the four UK nations – and hundreds of artists in virtually every discipline – we are beginning to see an impact on the arts sector that is just as profound.
“Our approach to schools work has changed significantly since being involved in TDF,” said Rob Elkington MBE, Director of Arts Connect, a current TDF grant holder. “You cannot just do the box of tricks now. You have to think about your theory of change, how will you engage school culture as a whole, how will you engage senior leaders, how will you build in quality reflection time.”
Rob has a unique perspective on the programme, having also been involved in a TDF pilot project led by the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA). He was also chair of Stan’s Cafe during their TDF project, The Classroom Stage, which concluded in 2022.
“Being part of this work has been huge for me. I’ve learned so much. That sense of being part of a collective, being held and valued, and knowing this has significance. It’s so important.”
A critical aspect of TDF is the way it has revealed to senior leaders the potential of the arts as an integral way of improving a school’s teaching and learning culture. “Teachers are very creative beings and sometimes I think that creativity gets lost in education, and that’s so important for teacher retention, for teacher confidence, for subject knowledge,” said Kate Finch, Headteacher at Thurlby Primary School in Lincolnshire, part of the Creativity Hive project supported by the TDF. (Our new film has more TDF thoughts from Kate and other senior leaders).
Time is perhaps the single most precious commodity in schools: squeezed by budgets and statutory pressures, time is cited over and again as a barrier to arts engagement in the 2024 Report Card published by the Cultural Learning Alliance, an organisation that champions the arts and culture in education. Time is also what TDF work has granted both schools and artists, allowing each sector to better understand and appreciate the other. This has been critical to the process of teachers and artists learning how to work effectively together.
“It was very much like a collaborative research project between artists and teachers from the start, which was new for teachers, who were used to the visiting experts delivering lessons,” said Kerri Sellens, Assistant Head of Lansbury Lawrence Primary School, which collaborated with the Akram Khan Company through a TDF grant focused on integrating dance pedagogy into teaching practice. “We had such a sustained period to explore and develop, and adapt and fine-tune, we could address the need without the limitations of time or the expectation that artists would always lead on the project.“
TDF work has thus far demonstrated staying power with both schools and arts organisations that isn’t as common with the more traditional, perform-and-depart arts education model. That’s what is happening in the wake of Wise About Words, a TDF partnership between Norwich Theatre Royal (NTR) and eight primary schools in the Wensum Trust. The project focused on developing teachers’ skills and confidence in using drama as a teaching tool.
Wise About Words concluded its TDF journey in 2023, but the core elements of the project sparked fresh collaborations. One of the teachers involved in Wise About Words is now leading the Wensum English Hub, one of 34 regional learning hubs funded across the UK by the Department of Education to ‘support excellence in teaching reading and early language development’. The Wensum hub is using Wise About Words’ drama-led processes and principles to engage teachers; Sam Dawson, NTR’s Head of Creative Engagement, said these sessions were ‘hugely subscribed’ and there are plans to schedule more in the future.
These legacy projects are supported by Jo Reil, who was the project manager for Wise About Words and is currently a consultant to NTR. “I learned through Wise About Words that teachers are really isolated, particularly in our region, and they absolutely love being in a room together and to bounce off each other creatively,” Jo said. The follow-on projects have also expanded to involve secondary school teachers, who insisted on working with their primary colleagues. “Both sets of teachers felt they could learn a lot from each other,” Jo said.
Sam said that the impact on NTR’s learning programme has been profound: “We feel like we’ve mapped out a journey from nursery through to the end of secondary school and we have an approach that feeds through, which we didn’t have before Wise About Words.”
If the wider impact of TDF work on the arts sector is only beginning to emerge, everyone who has taken a TDF journey so far is clear that the key to success is communication and collaboration. This isn’t always as straightforward as it seems.
“A lot of our artists worried they were not delivering their workshop,” Rob said. “It’s like, ‘You’ve paid me to do this work, but I spent the day just listening to teachers.’ Everybody just has to believe you can work differently. This work has shown how that’s possible.”
Director of Arts Connect, Rob Elkington, explores the Teacher Development Fund’s place in the continuum of arts and creativity programmes with schools and shares his thoughts on how artists and teachers can work together to transform practice.
Jenny Ayres, artist on Trestle Theatre’s Teacher Development Fund programme, Create, Speak, Thrive, reflects on what makes TDF distinct and shares some of the insights she gained over the past two years.
