Thinking of Goal 5? LCEPs
As recommended in Darren Henley’s Review of Cultural Education, a cross party/ cross departmental and cross agency group was established in 2012 to explore a shared approach to improving young people’s cultural education. Great Yarmouth was one of the three pilot Cultural Education Partnerships set up by this group - chosen because there was potential both to join up investment from partners like English Heritage, BFI, HLF and ACE and to improve cultural engagement. NFER evaluated the first two years of these partnerships and the report is available online.
At Festival Bridge we also believed that a targeted approach would help us make most change. We identified priority places – aligning closely with ACEs priorities – and have streamlined our capacity and some of our investment to champion young people’s access and participation to arts and culture in areas of low engagement i.e. Lowestoft or areas where the richness of the offer hasn’t been visible or accessible to all i.e Cambridge. We have been working in this way since 2013 and when ACE launched the Cultural Education Challenge, these have become our Local Cultural Education Partnerships – LCEPs
They are City of Literature for Children and Young People, Enjoy Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft Rising, My Cambridge, PHACE, Top Secret at Alconbury Weald and Young Fenland Cultural Consortium
Our 7 LCEPs are all geographical. Places where education providers and arts and cultural organisations work side by side to drive a joined up arts and cultural offer which responds to the needs of young people in that locality. They share resources and by working together make the offer more accessible, more coherent and most importantly more visible. We have chosen to work on a local level because we know young people face different challenges depending on where they live and because we want to have a measurable impact on young people’s engagement in arts and culture. We also champion cultural education at a top tier level through the county relationship which Michael has mentioned.
Our LCEPs are all different but they do share some characteristics. They all have long term ambitions and work towards making real measurable change. They are all driven by local need. They all have some sort of steering group at the centre of them but the size and format differs. They all have a name, some have a brand.
Ambitions for LCEPs focus on things like equality and breadth of access and building the confidence of young people to be consumers and creators of arts and culture.
LCEPs are long games – there’s a reason we have chosen the areas we have – they are difficult places to work due to geography, infrastructure, overkill. Change takes time as do relationships
Activity so far has included: o Development of young ambassador schemes and new work opportunities like creative apprenticeships o New peer to peer networks for teachers o Local strategic development for cultural entitlement resulting in things like local cultural education pledges o New creative product and new collaborations with schools and directly with young people o Communications strategies o Successful applications for projects from trusts and foundations
LCEPs are not: o Going to provide you with a database of schools who are instantly going to buy in your programme o Going to be a one way information channel o Quick wins o A panacea for everything goal 5 o All the same
However LCEPs can be testbeds for research and new approaches to work with children and young people i.e. My Cambridge is testing a culture card concept based on the technology behind library cards
LCEPs can be an opportunity to join up investment and share resources
LCEPs can help you meet your objectives around children and young people – Cambridge Arts and Cultural Leaders have an objective around cultural entitlement which is at the heart of the My Cambridge strategy
LCEPs work because they build face to face relationships between education providers and you - they build a shared language, joint ambition and trust and an understanding of what you offer . They are solution focussed and connected.
If you’re looking to work in priority places, LCEPs are good routes in for goal 5. There are a few more on the horizon as well.
Most LCEPs have at least one NPO on the steering group or as part of the membership but the relationship and benefits definitely go both ways. NPOs offer LCEPs invaluable knowledge of scale, funding, quality, commissioning. LCEPs have in depth knowledge of schools and can target schools with a specific offer from an NPO i.e. recruitment to the CAT programmes