Action for Children’s Arts, the UK’s umbrella body on behalf of all arts organizations providing arts for and working with children, has launched the UK’s first ‘Manifesto for Children’s Arts’ at its conference at The Unicorn Theatre London yesterday.
The delivery of the Manifesto was well-received by the packed house that consisted of senior government officials, politicians, school teachers, children’s rights workers, and delegates from all areas of the arts.
Camila Batmanghelidjh, founder of Kids Company, started the night’s proceedings with a moving speech, discussing how her charity has used the arts extensively as a means to reach out and help severely traumatized children come to terms and learn to overcome a life colored with a history of violence and abuse. Batmanghelidjh called for the empowerment of the arts and for the UK to stop putting arts to the bottom of the list of priorities reflected in government practice and society in general.
Following Batmanghelidjh, Michelle Magorian the well known children’s writer and author of the novel ‘Goodnight Mr. Tom’, discussed how she had seen her own son and other children benefit enormously from their involvement in music, dance and drama. Magorian closed her speech to robust applause at her call for everyone in the Unicorn Theatre to act on the manifesto so all children, regardless of ethnicity, location, or social-economic standing, could be helped and assisted to lead a happy and creative childhood.
Children’s Laureate, Michael Rosen, also urged support for this manifesto which everyone could sign up to and use as a starting point to campaign for change in the attitude of the powers that be to children and the Arts.
The Manifesto calls for government, political parties, schools Arts Councils, arts organisations, local authorities and the media to all help develop special policies for producing and promoting the arts to children and to work to raise the profile of this vital but often marginalised and under funded area. It is in direct accordance with Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which states that all world’s children are entitled to have access to the arts that.
The UN resolution includes the points that:
1 Every child has the right to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.
2 Member governments shall respect and promote the right of the child to participate fully in cultural and artistic life and shall encourage the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic, recreational and leisure activity.
But why the need for this in the UK? Action for Children’s Arts believe that there is indeed a requirement in the UK for a formal Manifesto for Children’s Arts. The manifesto, which is based on consultation with children and adults across the UK, wants to both raise awareness of the key role that the arts play in children’s lives and to campaign for changes in the attitudes of government, local authorities, schools, political parties, the Arts Council, arts organisations and the media.
Michael Rosen, the Children’s Laureate and ACA Patron said, ‘It’s absolutely vital that we see that the one way to investigate the world is through arts – they are vital to all of us but most especially to children. I think we really need a manifesto – we’ve reached a point in the argument where people don’t know about the arts and don’t know their absolute necessity – if they don’t know that then they don’t know where to go with the feelings that they have. A manifesto gives us a focus, key points that people can talk about and sign up to. This gives us a power to get a momentum going and we can start addressing the powers that be to change things.’
Via a video-link Beverley Hughes, Minister of State for Children, Young People and Families, said, “I am fully behind the Children’s Arts manifesto, and I accept the challenge it sets the Government. We’ve now got a confident, progressive curriculum that allows creativity and the arts to shine through in all lessons. But I know there are concerns that sometimes culture doesn’t play a big enough part in school life – which is why we have asked Sir Jim Rose review the primary curriculum to give teachers more freedom to be creative and embed the arts into all lessons.
Jeremy Hunt, Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport said he felt that we should move on in the education debate from whether schools should concentrate on either the arts or literacy and numeracy and realise just how integral both were. He hinted that perhaps the fact that literacy improvement rates had seemed to reach a plateau meant that schools should not just concentrate on literacy, at the absence of a solid arts focus as well. Instead a combination, and equal focus of the two should prove a good strategy.
Don Foster, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Culture, Media and Sport echoed this view and said the government should now put emphasis on freeing up schools from such a tight exam orientated curriculum and so liberating the creativity of both children and teachers.
David Wood, top children’s playwright and ACA Chair said the idea of some schools that 5 year olds don’t have time for fun anymore, indicates many schools losing touch with the needs of their students. He proclaimed that prevailing attitudes such as those should be fought, and that ACA would use this manifesto to spearhead a new campaign to raise the profile of arts for children and make sure that more was done in the UK to meet the country’s obligations in respect of Article 31 UN’s Charter on the Rights of the Child.
Other speakers at the morning and afternoon sessions of the conference included Vicky Ireland, ACA Vice Chair and leading children’s theatre director, Shami Chakrabarti, Director Liberty, and Professor Sir Ken Robinson, expert in creativity in business & education. Rounding out the program were many top children’s authors and representatives of arts organisations large and small involved in children’s arts. A highlight of the conference was Terry Jones (writer, broadcaster, performer and ‘Monty Python’) chairing a question time session with a panel made up of key figures from the worlds of education and the arts.
