What is it

Creativity for Life aims to explore the impact of creative approaches to teaching and learning upon children and young people's aspirations, achievement and attainment.
We believe that long-term relationships between schools and creative practitioners can help unlock the creativity of learners and educators. Such relationships can animate the classroom and the community, placing creativity at the heart of learning both across and beyond the curriculum.
We also believe that creativity is not just about the arts – this project will be about developing thinking, problem solving, inventing and reinventing - and about flexing the imaginative muscles. Through an intensive partnership with a creative practitioner, and with access to other practitioners from many different disciplines, children and young people will be able to develop learning skills that are transferable, and that will support them on their pathway towards adult life.

Why we support it

Arts Council England is proud and delighted to support Creativity for Life.
Arts Council England is the national development agency for the arts in England. Between 2005 and 2008 we invested £1.7billion of public funds from theGovernment and the National Lottery. This is the bedrock of support for the arts in England. Our vision is to promote the arts at the heart of national life, reflecting England's rich and diverse cultural identity. We believe that the arts have the power to transform lives and communities for people throughout the country.
In our manifesto ambitions for the arts 2003-2006 we set out to:
• Prioritise individual artists
• Work with funded organisations to help them thrive rather than just survive
• Place cultural diversity at the heart of our work
• Prioritise young people and Creative Partnerships
• Maximise growth in the arts
The development team at Arts Council England, East aims to ensure that the arts have an effective role in fostering sustainable and inclusive communities by engaging the broadest spectrum of people as audience members, participants, learners and creators. Our strategy focuses on four key elements, which make up the departments portfolio:

1. Diversity
2. Children and Young People (Cultural and Creative Entitlement)
3. Sustainable and Inclusive Communities
4. Learning and Skills incorporating Creative Partnerships

Prioritising children and young people

The arts have an extraordinary power to deepen, broaden and transform the lives of children and young people. The country’s long-term aspirations as a creative economy depend on providing opportunities now for children and young people to participate in arts and creativity. The arts and creativity are related to young people’s educational success and development.

Impact of the arts

We have seen the impact of the arts on:

• early years or infant development
• primary, secondary and special education, through our Creative Partnerships programme
• young offenders’ increased employability and reduced re-offending

In our partnerships

We will make sure that the lessons from Creative Partnerships in developing creativity in learning are integrated.
We will build on from our initial work with Essex and Hertfordshire County Councils, who piloted this scheme in a number of their schools and created a model which we hope will be emulated across the region.
We anticipate that this website will be used as a resource for anyone working with young people, such as teachers and local authorities. In this way the project can be maintained and used by more schools and local authorities.