Children and young people

A new music exam discount scheme hopes to remove the financial barriers for students who struggle to pay exam fees.

The pilot scheme launched by the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) will enable students to save up to 95% of the cost of practical and performance grades, as well as music theory exams.

Operated by Music Mark, the UK’s subject association for music education, the scheme is available to local authority music services in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Each music service provider will be allocated exam discounts based on published school roll numbers, with adjustments for deprivation.

Schools will have discretion over the level of discount requested for each student. However, ABRSM said they are "likely to follow existing fee remissions policies that many music services already have in place".

ABRSM’s Chief Executive, Chris Cobb, said: "At a time when costs and prices are increasing, we are ever more aware that many families are facing financial hardship.

"The pilot discount scheme is about working with music services to help them support those facing the biggest challenges, and about helping to make music learning and progression more accessible for more people."

The pilot is operating in the UK, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. It will run until July 2024.

The National Trust has opened what it says is the world’s first stately home entirely reimagined for children.

Sudbury Hall, a 17th-century country house in Derbyshire, has been redeveloped into the Children’s Country House after a two-and-a-half-year renovation project.

National Trust staff consulted with 100 young ambassadors, aged up to 12 years, to devise and test ideas for the property.

The Hall welcomed visitors for the first time last weekend. There are almost no ropes or barriers in the property, allowing visitors to explore the space freely, with colour coding to signal what objects can be touched.

The house features activities, games, a photo booth, children’s books and a shadow puppet theatre in various rooms. Children can learn the basics of heritage conservation in the pantry, which features an interactive display of heritage hazards.

National Trust Director of Curation and Experience said he hopes The Children’s County House “will spark a lifelong love of heritage in the children who step through its doors”.

“We try to be imaginative in how we interpret our places: trying new ideas, where it’s appropriate, to engage people’s different interests. But, as we’ve done at Sudbury Hall, we always do this through careful research, and with the utmost respect for the historic fabric we look after.”

Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG) and football team Tottenham Hotspur will work together to improve theatre engagement in young people in the London Borough of Haringey, it has been announced.

The organisations are launching West End in Tottenham, a series of workshops for young people aged 11-18 years old that plan to “celebrate London’s arts and culture and put the voices of N17 centre stage”.

Workshops range from physicality and movement to beatboxing and hip-hop, with participants also invited to attend a West End stage show.

The sessions will take place at the London Academy of Excellence on the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium campus throughout the current school term.

Tottenham Hotspur Executive Director Donna-Maria Cullen said dreams of being on stage can “seem so distant” for young people in the neighbourhood.

“West End In Tottenham can change that and open the eyes of Tottenham teenagers to the world of performing arts through a series of engaging and inspiring workshops, held right here on our stadium campus,” she added.

Sessions are available to book here.

The Royal Opera House has partnered with The Elliot Foundation Academies Trust (TEFAT) to deliver a year-long scheme for teachers across the trust’s 32 primary schools.

The programme of arts-led learning will offer training sessions for teachers in schools in London, East Anglia and the West Midlands.

There will also be a five-week scheme of work inspired by Royal Opera House productions, as well as virtual rehearsals and workshops livestreamed from Covent Garden.

These will be followed by regional presentations and a final performance at the Royal Opera House in July 2023.

The programme is part of TEFAT’s wider Partnership Investment Programme, which has worked over three years to support teachers in projects that improve children’s language and communication skills.

Hugh Greenway, Chief Executive of TEFAT, said: “It is through arts partnerships like this that we are able to help children, and their teachers, raise their expectations of themselves.”

Eight theatres around Europe are participating in a new project that will create texts on diverse and inclusive topics for young theatre audiences across the continent.

Young Europe IV is the fourth edition of European Theatre Convention’s Young Europe project, which has been running since 2008.

It will see the Belarus Free Theatre, which is currently based at London’s Barbican Centre, work alongside theatres in Germany, Cyprus, Slovakia, Slovenia, Malta and the Netherlands.

The new, diverse plays will cover issues from mental health to sexuality to the Israel-Palestine conflict and will be performed in school classrooms across Europe.

A separate strand of Young Europe IV, the Forgotten Plays Committee, will select and revive dramatic work by writers from non-dominant backgrounds that have been overlooked, either because of the background of the playwright or theme of the play.

Artistic Lead on Young Europe IV Paulien Geerlings says the European theatre world currently remains the white, heterosexual, male gaze that determines our experiences.

“Women, BIPOC, the LGBTQIA+ community…everyone needs to see themselves represented in the stories that are told. If there is hardly any representation, and the representation that does exist always confirms the same (often problematic) stereotype, as a person or child belonging to a marginalised group you cannot relate to the multitude of possibilities your counterparts are provided with. 

“That is why it is time for a new repertoire – to stop people from being reduced to the ‘single story’ that they have heard all of their lives.”

An online launch event is scheduled for Thursday (6 October) evening.

The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) has announced a host of initiatives aimed at supporting young people’s access to arts education.

They include Time To Act, a two-year research project into the impact of RSC’s work on children’s language development, literacy skills and sense of identity, agency and inclusion.

The study will be RSC’s first since becoming an Independent Research Organisation.

Elsewhere, the RSC has set the date (18 July 2023) for its first national Young Creatives Convention hosted by the RSC Youth Advisor Board. It has also confirmed an eight-week nationwide tour of schools and theatres with its production of Twelfth Night and added the RSCs young company RSC Next Generation Act’s production of Hamlet to its 2023 programme. 

The company also released educational resources for Deaf young people studying Shakespeare and learning materials for GCSE Drama and English students.

RSC Director of Learning and National Partnerships Jacqui O’Hanlon said the initiatives are about opening up access to arts opportunities and benefits for all young people.

“Ask the young people that we work with, or who work with theatres and arts organisations across the UK, and they will tell you about the enormous value of arts subjects and experiences to their lives and development.

“But they will also tell you that society at large doesn’t seem to value them in the same way. Children’s access to arts is a social justice issue and our Youth Advisory Board want to join the debate and champion their rights, their education and their futures.”

The Royal Academy of Arts is introducing half-priced exhibition tickets for all visitors aged 25 and under.

The institution says the move is a bid to help make the RA’s exhibitions more accessible. It will run alongside the existing offer of free exhibition entry for under 16s.

An existing discounted membership scheme for young people is being extended to include all under 35s. The RA’s Young Friends Membership, which starts from £65 a year, offers unlimited access to exhibitions.

RA Secretary and Chief Executive Axel Rüger said he is “delighted to be able to offer new ways into the RA especially designed for a younger audience”. 

“With an exceptional autumn exhibition programme and longer opening hours, we look forward to welcoming new visitors.”