Have you noticed how often a gallery, museum or other arts and culture centre has
a dedicated educational outreach function?

For these venues, the needs of schools and the importance of engaging with children are key to their work.

It was this realisation that led me to rethink how we could embed creativity
in our school in a way that would engage students and staff alike.

So we set about creating a developmental learning laboratory that sits at the centre of the school, bringing artists into the school in a way that complements our teaching and learning and enhances our community engagement.

We named it Artist Residency Thailand and, to establish its credentials, partnered
with The International Schools Theatre Association and accredited it with Res Artis, a worldwide network of arts residencies.

The value of an artists’ residency in school

From there we could start looking for art practitioners to come into the school
and work alongside our students - from philosophers in junior school classrooms
and ceramicists in science labs, to theatre directors in English lessons.

Each residency is different and participants deliver everything from standalone masterclasses to month-long engagements that are driven by project-based learning.

Furthermore, programme participants give an average of four hours of their time each day to work with our community and, in return, they benefit from resource access, opportunities for piloting ideas and mentoring, as well as research, exhibition
and performance spaces.

Often participants also hold events, debates, concerts and performances, framing the school and campus as a cultural hub for the wider community.

Of course, we have to ensure participants have an educational element to their work,
so do to that we introduced four guiding principles to inform their approaches:

• Engage: excite students about learning.
• Enhance: go beyond what we have done before.
• Enliven: animate our campus and community with learning and expression and make learning visible.
• Empower: develop resilient and confident young people and progressive, open-minded educators.

This has led to some wonderful moments: screenings by filmmakers, seminars from philosophers and concerts from musicians that have brought our community together and generated ideas for learning.

It all means our students are now more likely to see their learning taking place in different and unusual areas of our campus; interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches are more imaginative and collaborative in nature, and educators are confident developing lessons in new areas.

Many “non-arts” subject teachers now have an understanding of arts-centralised skills that can be used to aid enquiry or manage energy levels within all subject areas.

What this journey has shown is that there are practical ways to nurture creativity in our schools and create the grassroots transformation that Sir Ken Robinson championed. After all, as he stated: “A vibrant school can nourish a whole community by becoming a
source of hope and creative energy.”

I believe we have demonstrated that there are ways to bring this noble aim to life.

Alex Soulsby is a creative education specialist and the creative director for Prem Tinsulanonda International School and its Artist Residency Thailand programme

This article originally appeared in the 17 September 2021 edition under the headline ‘We’ve got engagement down to a fine art’