About Cultural Hubs
Arts Council England and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council have jointly developed three Cultural Hubs in Telford, County Durham, and Bournemouth and Poole.
The aim of Cultural Hubs was to explore a model of delivering a workable cultural offer for children and young people, at the heart of which is effective partnership working and joint planning between the cultural and education sectors.
The original aims of the programme were that the Hubs would:
- Facilitate joint planning between cultural organisations and schools
- Increase the number and variety of cultural experiences for children and young people in the participating schools
- Increase the number of continuing professional development opportunities for participating teachers and cultural practitioners
- Increase learning in, through and about arts and culture
Each Cultural Hub was made up of a consortium of arts organisations, museums, archives, galleries, libraries and schools, that planned and delivered programmes and provided a broad cultural offer for young people between September 2005 and July 2008. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport invested £1.5m per year in the programme through Arts Council England. The development was also supported by the DfES.
About the evaluation
Hayton Associates was commissioned by Arts Council England to evaluate the Cultural Hubs approach and the three different models of delivery over the three years of the programme. The focus of the evaluation was on:
- the effectiveness of the Cultural Hubs in delivering a cultural offer
- the effects of participation in the Cultural Hub on schools, arts and cultural organisations and the wider community
- the learning outcomes of participation in the Cultural Hub programme for pupils, teachers and arts practitioners.
As well as building on the evaluation methodology we have developed over the previous eight years, we have incorporated into the process the Inspiring Learning for All framework and the generic learning outcomes developed by MLA.
The final evaluation report is now available on our publications page.
