I have just returned from three weeks in Africa — buying sculptures for our next Kingham Lodge show, and then visiting Madagascar. While there, I found a T-shirt with a slogan on it: “If you think you’re too small to make a difference, try being in a room with a…
Three years ago we built CATS largely on instinct and necessity. Now a major independent study suggests we may have stumbled upon something remarkably close to the model that works. When we started Cotswolds Arts Through Schools, there was no grand theory behind it. We built it the way we…
What happens when we look beyond the label and ask what makes a child come alive? When our artists and musicians go into schools they are sometimes warned that little Jonnie, Peter or Ben — usually boys — may find the session difficult. Yet quite often the opposite happens. Put…
Preparations have begun for Sculpture at Kingham Lodge 2027 — from choosing new work in Zimbabwe to imagining what thousands of schoolchildren might create next. The last couple of months we have started the process of planning the next Sculpture at Kingham Lodge, which will open to the public from 21–31 May…
Britain’s creative industries generate £124 billion a year. Youth disengagement costs an estimated £125 billion. What might happen if we invested earlier? Two figures caught my eye recently, and the closeness between them is worth pausing on: the creative industries contribute somewhere in the region of £124 billion a year to the…
When the 29 states suing Meta in a California court started their proceedings there was talk of a billion in damages. So why was $18bn described by Rob Bonta, the California Attorney General who led the case, as “transformational.” Meta called it proof it was “partnering with parents and experts.” Read…
Day after day I watch children and young people looking at their phones, oblivious to traffic or birdsong, not talking to friends and family, isolated from the real world to be part of an internet world. I therefore make no apology for coming back to what I consider one of…
Dear Friends, Whilst you are all enjoying the summer (even if we are all in desperate need of some rain!), we wanted to take a moment to say thank you. Thank you to every headteacher who welcomed us through your doors last academic year. Thank you to every teacher and teaching…
Clap, clap (on left) clap, clap (right) Stamp stamp Bang my tum like a drum Wiggle my bum. It isn’t exactly high opera and I’m not sure if Wagner or Verdi would have approved, though I think Mozart would have been delighted! This song, and dance, was the introduction to…
Since we started Cotswolds Arts Through Schools, arguing for the arts in primary schools has meant making the case from scratch, school by school, funder by funder. That has been true in schools, to trusts and philanthropists, and, when we get the chance, to politicians. Is that about to change? In…