Art School Announces New Series On How To Improve And Protect Arts Education

Art School, the new company set up to support the education sector and arts industry to come together to improve and protect arts education, has announced details of its new series of events on how to improve arts education.

The new series, "Art School: The Future of Arts Education", will include In Conversation events on this subject with, amongst others, Olivier award-winning director John Tiffany, Head of Mulberry School Vanessa Ogden, the former Head of Film at Creative England Caroline Cooper Charles, founder of Actor Awareness Tom Stocks, Chair of What Next Generation Daniel Harrison and Oxford University academic Helen Campbell Pickford, who co-wrote the influential In Battalions study which was credited by former Culture Minister Ed Vaizey as leading to tax changes for theatres supporting new writing.

The first event will take place on October 26th at 6pm with John Tiffany, Daniel Harrison and Tom Stocks and can be booked here: https://artschool-drama.eventbrite.co.uk.

Jennifer Tuckett, Co-Director of Art School, said: "We are delighted to be launching Art School. With increasing threats to arts education such as EBACC not including creative subjects, decreased uptake of arts subjects at school level, and the closure of arts A Levels such as Creative Writing this year, now is a crucial time to work together to explore how to improve and protect arts education. We hope this series will explore what work is currently going on in terms of arts education in the UK, what is working and what's not, why arts education is important and come up with recommendations for improving and protecting arts education in the future."

David Evan Giles, Co-Director of Art School said: "Art School builds on Jennifer's previous campaigns to improve arts education - The Student Guide to Writing: Playwriting with the Bush Theatre and Oberon Books, University Women in the Arts with Tonic Theatre and the Women of the Future Programme and London Writers Week - and my work in schools and in the arts. We're looking forward to taking this work to improve arts education to the next level with Art School and focusing on bringing the education sector and arts industry together to discuss, explore and provide recommendations about this important subject over the course of the next year".

The guests for the first session are John Tiffany, Daniel Harrison and Tom Stocks.

John Tiffany trained at Glasgow University gaining an MA in Theatre and Classics. He was Literary Director for the Traverse Theatre and Associate Director for Paines Plough and the National Theatre of Scotland. He is currently an Associate Director for The Royal Court Theatre. During 2010-11 John was a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University. John recently directed the stage play of Harry Potter And The Cursed Child, which opened in the West End in June 2016 and garnered eight WhatsOnStage 2017 and nine Olivier 2017 Awards, including Best Director and Best New Play.

Daniel Harrison is a member of The Young Vic Theatre's Taking Part team, who produce and facilitate the theatre's outreach and participation projects in Southwark and Lambeth, including producing community productions, running in-school workshops and administrating free ticket schemes. Daniel is also a facilitator and storyteller for the Museum of London, and for Battersea Arts Centre's Moving Museums project. He is also Chair of What Next? Generation, a campaign and lobby group for artists and arts professionals at the start of their careers, and Events Lead for Act For Change, the diversity in the performing arts charity.

Tom Stocks is the founder of the Actor Awareness campaign, a campaign fighting to have more equality, diversity and working class actors in the industry, no matter your background or financial restraints. The campaign is rapidly gathering support from all corners of the industry and Tom recently took part in Labour's inquiry into working class barriers to the performing arts.

To book places for the first Art School event, where John Tiffany, Daniel Harrison and Tom Stocks will be speaking, please go to: https://artschool-drama.eventbrite.co.uk.

For more information on Art School and to sign up to the mailing list to be kept informed of future events in the series, please go to: www.artschool.space.

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