Summary
Post covid, school visits to art galleries have significantly fallen. This is a trend that the William Syson Foundation is aiming to reverse.
Aims and activities
Aims and questions
Aims and activities
Following a 1 year pilot programme which has supported art galleries, their staff, freelance art educators, school art departments and delivered a formative, curriculum relevant, tour and art workshop for hundreds of schoolchildren. We are looking to encourage aligned trusts and foundations to join us in a co-ordinated 3 year programme to extend the programme to thousands of schoolchildren beyond Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
This increasing trend of state schools no longer bussing students out to art galleries in Scotland is a result of increasing resource pressures on schools, both funding and staffing, exacerbated by the financial pressures felt within galleries and museums, all of whom have cut back on their schools in-reach programmes. School visitation numbers have never recovered.
Following discussions with schools, teachers and art gallery staff, we decided to run a pilot programme addressing several barriers to access, including unaffordable coach hire costs, admin challenges for overburdened school office staff, cuts to art gallery staff, and lack of funds to pay art educators to deliver curriculum appropriate workshops. Our programme pays for admin staff time in the Gallery to run all the administration on behalf of schools, pays for freelance educators to deliver a tour and curriculum appropriate workshop for pupils, and pays for the coach hire, leaving school arts teachers to simply pick a date for their visit at zero cost to the school.
We awarded £75k in total, split equally between Aberdeen Art Gallery, Kelvingrove Gallery and National Gallery of Scotland, launching at the start of this academic year in August 2024. We will receive feedback in early May 2025 though we have already witnessed the delivery of tour and workshops, with outstanding feedback from pupils, teachers and gallery staff. With this feedback and a one-year track record we would like to club together other interested trusts and foundations to join us in co-funding (co-ordinated not pooled structure) at least a 3 year programme starting from the next academic year. Our aim in doing so is to widen the beneficial impact by involving more schools, providing surety of funding for gallery staff and to expand the programme to other galleries and regions of Scotland.
A track record has been established to demonstrate to other funders that aligned, co-ordinated funding can make a beneficial impact to thousands of schoolchildren in Scotland, promoting art, supporting art education and creating employment opportunities for gallery staff and freelance art educators.
How to get involved
Please get in touch with Brynley Davies who runs our grant programmes and he will be able to provide more background.
Who's involved
Who was involved
The William Syson Foundation. We are seeking interested trusts and foundations that support schoolchildren, art, or art education, in Scotland to discuss the potential for a co-funding initiative (not pooled funding).
Learning and Resources
In early May, we will receive from the three art galleries useful information regarding the composition of school visits, split by year group, number of children, SIMD area info, breakdown of funds spent vs budget, pupil feedback, gallery feedback and direct teacher conversations. This resource will be shared with interested funders.
