At the end of last year we at Germination were asked to put together a website for the Cultural Learning Alliance – a campaign that was to be time tied (1 year) and specific in its aim to unite different interests in ensuring that creative and cultural activities continued to be used to educate our children.  This was the result.

The campaign has since grown with over 1,500 people signed up and partners right across the cultural and education sectors – from big name cultural institutions like the Tate, the RSC and Sage Gateshead to the many, many schools in support.  As parents around the country prepare their kids for the new school year, and we all get that post-summer-back-to-school feeling, the issue of what and how we want our kids to be taught comes into sharp focus.  Research launched last week by Professor Tanya Byron shows that 1 in 5 parents have forgotten how to play with their children (see her statement in support of the campaign here) while another from Barnardos explores the clusters of privilege formed around top state schools.  Now is the time to be pushing the issue up the agenda ahead of the Comprehensive Spending Review. There are many good arguments as to why culture in education is really important – attainment levels, training for creative industries jobs and holistic learning to name just three  - and they need to be made forcefully so that the good work happening in schools around the country can be maintained despite the cuts.

It’s not just government that needs to be convinced however, and its not only about money.  Through the campaign we’re aiming to mobilise professionals in cultural institutions, teachers who ‘get it’ and parents to articulate why children learning through culture is vital to education, and how new local networks can be formed to support practice.

Tomorrow we push forward with the campaigns’ social media strategy – a growing Linked In group, the requisite Twitter and Facebook activity and a number of blogs that will mount in content and regularity as we move towards the CSR.  Post the spending settlement, we’ll then bring cultural professionals, teachers and parents together in a week long of activities under the Big Links Up Events to crowdsource a manifesto for the future of ensuring children and young people learn through their links with the visual and performing arts, film making, trips to museums, music and so on.  This is not a middle class campaign, but absolutely about ensuring all children get access to these activities that enrich and inform us.  The Big Link Up Events will unite people with an interest in protecting cultural learning in our schools and set up local networks which will continue well after the event, and we’re proud that our work on the campaign will lead to a longer lasting legacy than simply communications fizz.  The website will evolve into a dynamic site containing research and evidence about why cultural learning works, submitted by practitioners, that will live on after the campaign.

This is one of our biggest communications campaigns to date and we’re very proud to be involved.  For more info and to SIGN UP, see here.  And join us for the Big Link Up Events in November.

JT.