What are the long-term aims of Creative Partnerships?

Creative Partnerships looks to stimulate whole school change and renaissance in the classroom where learning and teaching become joyful and where change is welcomed rather than being seen as a threat.

Creative Partnerships provides a powerful, focused, high profile and inspirational tool for change which can genuinely capture the imagination of children, parents and carers, teachers and communities, transforming expectations, provoking loud demand for better and invoking shifts in thinking and doing in the wider education system in the longer term.

What do creative and cultural organisations and individuals need to bring to Creative Partnerships?

They need to demonstrate openness, flexibility and the ability to listen, to consult with schools, teachers and Creative Partnerships on projects. Providing imaginative, risk–taking and creative leadership, they will seek to bring out the best in the pupils and teachers they work with, and through their projects to contribute to the wider debate on education.

What are Creative Partnerships intentions for education?

Creative Partnerships should provoke debate about 'creativity' – what is a Creative School, a Creative Classroom, a Creative Teacher, a Creative Parent and of course, most importantly, a Creative Child, with similar questions for the Cultural and Creative organisations involved in the programme.

How can creative and cultural organisations and individuals get involved?

If you are a creative practitioner or a cultural organisation and would like to learn more about how to get involved with Creative Partnerships, get in touch with your area office or fill in this email form

In this form you can give details of your work and background: use the message box to give as long a description as you like. Include links to websites with relevant pages, that show your work or send appropriate material to the area office.

Please note that all the work done through Creative Partnerships starts from the needs of the schools and young people. This is not about bringing a project proposal to a school: it is about bringing your creativity, your way of thinking and doing, to a collaborative effort with the specific needs of the young people uppermost in mind.

Please do bear in mind that there is a great deal of interest from potential creative partners and that the area office does not have the capacity to deal in depth with all of you who register.

How does Creative Partnerships measure its success?

Creative Partnerships has to meet a comprehensive range of clearly defined goals, identified in the Creative Partnerships Policy Framework. These range from targets set by the DCMS and DfES, to targets for individual projects and partnerships.

A careful monitoring and evaluation programme ensures that Creative Partnerships really does increase the number of young people taking part in creative learning activities. It also evaluates the impact of these activities on those involved – the pupils, the teachers and schools, the creative professionals and arts, creative and cultural organisations, parents and governors, the local community and other partner organisations. What's more, analysis ensures lessons are learned, improving the programme in a practical way as Creative Partnerships develops and extends its work.

• At quarterly reviews, Creative Partnerships must demonstrate that it is meeting all programme targets.


• In addition to this, the National Federation for Educational Research (NFER) has been contracted to undertake the evaluation of Creative Partnerships' first phase, following a rigorous, competitive tendering process.


• Many of the Creative Partnerships regions run focussed research programmes of their own, exploring areas of interest such as creative teaching and learning styles, and the conditions for effective partnership. One element of this local research is its focus on capacity building and skills development in data collection and research among participating teachers – thus providing professional development.


• Each Creative Partnership also undertakes a comprehensive evaluation programme.

How does Creative Partnerships work?

Creative Partnerships is managed and steered on a national level by the National Director, and a team as part of the Arts Council of England.

Creative Partnerships has a unique approach to working with schools. It first helps schools identify their individual needs, and then enables them to develop long–term, sustainable partnerships with organisations including architects, theatre companies, museums, cinemas, historic buildings, dance studios, recording studios, orchestras, website designers and many others that find proactive ways to address these needs.

In each of the 36 areas, a small team lead by a Creative Director has been appointed which builds 'Creative Partnerships' between the participating schools and organisations.