Jenny Saville has alot to answer for.

I saw the Dr Challoner's High A level exhibition tonight. Its a show I look forward to. The work always has a challenging self regarding intensity. It is engaging and at times moving, as these students at a girls; grammar school gaze unblinkingly and honestly at themselves and their world. This year is unusual. The course encourages individual responses and the department has a really good library of reference books in the department (probably the best that I know of in Bucks). These students also visit major London galleries and usually there will be a variety of different references and influences in the work.


This year it seemed all students were wholly engaged in portraits - large, painterly closely cropped and expressive - often anguished. References were Jenny Saville, Lucien Freud, Maggi Hambling and Egon Schiele. The work was excellent and it was clear that AS students had already fully exploited and mastered the techniques they were exploring. It will be really interesting to see what these students do for the A2 work next year they already have a mature and masterly painting technique. They are already at ease using portraiture and figures to make genuinely expressive pictures - what next?

Change I do hope so

Writing this while attending a creativity conference organised by Creative Junction. I should be in a workshop but I am just too old to 'do drama'. It is sharing and celebratory meeting for schools in the current ‘Change School’ programme. This is a Creative Partnership three year funded programme which involves schools working with creative practitioners to develop creativity in the curriculum and in teaching and learning.

One salutary reminder from a keynote address was that that the current funding pattern is probably secure until 2011. It occurs to me that a real issue for all of us is to consider what will be left in 2012 for the next generation of children. How is this work ensuring that teaching, pedagogy and the curriculum is being changed and how are we evaluating and then embedding any significant new practice we are developing. I worry that we are spending our time (and finite funding) on projects for children which simply confirm what we already know - that children enjoy and become enthused by changes to routines and access to artists. But if the programme is predicated upon this level of funding for artists in schools I fear it is simply not sustainable. Far more important for me is the need to change, inform and inspire teachers so that they can lead creativity for this and all the subsequent generations they teach.

The role of artists, or creative practitioners is also an intriguing issue. I worry that too often they fall back into the simplistic default role of workshop leader. This is the least important role, not least because children’ work should be led by teachers who are always best placed to manage and lead learning. The artist as workshop leader is a problem for various reasons. They may not be good teachers - why should they be? They may respond to the expectations the school has of them by setting up formulaic workshops in which children are no more than apprentice labourers in the production predefined by the artist, with little ownership and little access to first hand creativity.

Earlier there was a significant presentation by Priory School about work they are doing to support the peer and self review of creativity for pupils. It unpacks and reinterprets the conceptual framework of creativity developed by Ken Robinson and transforms these into a set of cards/pictograms which enable children and teachers to reflect upon different aspects of creativity. It was used to confirm and analyse the nature of creativity being developed and through reflection, sustain and improve the experience.

But it was good to once again join a group of teachers excited, dedicated and discovering for themselves why it is important and exciting to be a teacher.

A priviledge and a pleasure

Just a short note to record the work of two young men. Both are 6th form students. One at The Royal Latin, the other at the Misbourne. Their art work was extraordinary in its self confident maturity.What was particularly moving was the obvious and compelling logic of their next steps one to architecture, the other to stage design. Everything they had made showed a natural mastery, fascination and precocious talent within their chosen fields. Their choice of career seemed absolutely inevitable in view of their inherent talent. It was inspiring to have a glimpse of such natural talent at the begining of their careers. At such times it is good to be an art teacher.

Chemical or Digital?

More schools are offering photography at A level this year. It's not just the easy access to digital camera's and Photoshop either as many offer both chemical as well as digital processing: although the sheer ubiquity of digital photography must have something to do with it. It is curious that, although it could be done digitally, teachers are prepared to fight for the dedicated darkroom space, cost of equipment, chemicals and cameras that are required for 'real' photography.

Superficially it seems perverse and talking to teachers, there is often only a rather vague assertion, that in some ways digital is good for you, to justify the extra effort. But, on reflection I cannot recall taking a good photograph with any digital camera - although I used to be quite good with my old SLR. Talking to teachers tonight (at the Amersham school 'A' level exhibition) I begin to see the point. It is not so much in illustrating the original meaning of cropping and dodging and, to be frank, the magic of chemical developing is only a transient pleasure. But what was apparent in the photographs of these students was a practice which used a camera and viewfinder to search, frame and capture a particular, unique and transitory event - I guess it may be the only legitimate use of the awful phrase 'moment in time'. These photographs were simply different to the point and click, scatter gun, approach of most digital photographs. Images had been thoughtfully pursued and captured, not opportunistically grabbed and processed after the event.

Whether it is worth the full paraphernalia of the darkroom is still a moot point but I recognise that I really do need to buy a digital SLR.

Arts Mark

Just a note about Artsmark as we ran some training this afternoon. Information about the next round (round 10) will be published on the Artsmark website at the end of July. As usual there will be some slight changes but it makes sense to use this year's materials for an initial rough audit this term. This should enable schools to begin to build any changes into next year's programme. It would be sensible to ensure that the school has an 'Arts Policy' this term. It would allow time for it to be approved by governors. It would also get 'buy in' from colleagues, SLT and governors - without this it will be an uphill task.

It is worth noting that rumour has it that the Arts Mark criteria may well change in response to the new curriculum models in both secondary and primary phases. This is clearly appropriate. It may also be that a radical rethink of the programme might take place - it is increasingly expensive to administer with increasing numbers of schools applying. The Arts Council are making no guarrantees about the future of Arts Mark beyond this next round.

Every Child is begining to Matter

It has been a curious week working across the whole educational spectrum from infant schools to university courses. I am an external examiner for art on the BA Hons Primary Education offered by Birmingham University and today I attended a briefing meeting for external examiners across the brand new Faculty of Education, Law and Social Sciences. We were told of the synergy between these recently introduced bedfellows on the Perry Bar campus - so look out for courses in criminology and early years.

It was interesting to hear of recent innovations in the university to improve the learning experience for students by listening to students in seminars and consultations to review the experience from the student's perspective. Curious that the previous evening I had been with a primary school's governing body looking at the process of appointing a new headteacher and we noted how many adverts included quotes from infant children saying what they wanted in their new headteacher. Is ECM genuinely changing from an ernest slogan into an all embracing new mind set in which the children's (student's) voice is actually begining to change practice in all phases of education?

Another intriguing, and new idea for the university, was the notion that if students fail a module, rather than engage in a sequence of resits, they should be invited to agree and sign a 'learning contract'. This would define expectations of what they should do like; attend lectures, write essays, read books and also what the university would do like provide guidance etc. The curious thing for me was that they were going to do it after the student had failed. In schools we are now doing this before students fail in ordwer to prevent them from failing. But there are again very clear parallels with the developing culture in schools. A few days earlier I had been working with a group of secondary schools dicussing how interventions, coaching, mentoring and picking students up from home to get them into the exam on time is making a difference. These schools no longer acknowledged student failure and provided CPD to do better next year but they took personal and responsibility for intervening with every student at risk of failing and took action this week and next week and every other week if necessary. Again every child is really begining to matter.

FFT, Myths and Reality

There are many misconceptions about FFT data. The most prevalent myth is that somehow FFT takes performance in English Maths and Science and through some obscure psychometric testing uses this to predict aptitude in Art. In fact this is not true. FFT only uses SATs data to identify pupils with similar starting points and then produces a profile of how this group performed in their art exams. Having identified the performance of the group it then estimates the probability of children with the same starting point achieving different grades. Essentially its a sum, an estimate, a statistical possibility. Its not a target or a prediction.

A few advisers have been developing a working paper to try to explain the nature and role of FFT in target setting in art. This can be found at www.FFTart.wikispaces.com This provides explanation and some recommendations that may be helpful.