From Hugh James, Creative Director, Creative Partnerships, Nottingham
I am responding to Paul Harman?s comments (ArtsProfessional issue 69, March 8, p2) on behalf of the Creative Directors working in the current 16 Creative Partnerships areas. The purpose of the Creative Partnerships programme is to explore innovative approaches to creative learning in schools through sustained partnerships between schools and creative practitioners. In order to research and test out new practice we need an in depth engagement that?s only possible through working with a limited number of schools. However, both DCMS and DfES are now looking for this innovative practice to extend further.
Creative Partnerships will soon have a presence in half the Local Education Authorities in England, and will expand to cover twenty new areas by 2005. Creative Partnerships schools and their partners have begun to share their learning with others through collaborations with non-Creative Partnerships schools, through a wide-ranging programme of professional development opportunities, and by establishing links with other initiatives, such as the partnership with the Paul Hamlyn Foundation?s Musical Futures project in Nottingham.
As a former Theatre in Education practitioner, I agree with Paul?s view that young people?s theatre should be supported, and Creative Partnerships Nottingham has commissioned a new play for young people that opened last month; Dragon Breath by Peter Rumney, winner of the 2002 John Whiting Award. It forms the centrepiece of the year-long Dream City programme, which uses a range of creative activities to help children find positive ways of coping and dealing with challenges in their lives. Creative practitioners, school staff, pupils and theatre design students from Nottingham Trent University have all contributed to the production, which will reach 1,000 children from Nottingham schools.