Create UK week

3 July 2015

Create UK week

To celebrate the fantastic work of the UK creative industries and the upcoming release of the employment and export industry figures, DCMS brought the creative industries together in a week long social media campaign centred on the #CreateUK hashtag. The week explored the fantastic range of employment opportunities across the sector and look at what makes the UK’s creative industries so exceptional through innovative online content including Instagram takeovers, blogs, Vines and graphics. Read more

Toolkit launched to unlock new audiences and revenues for the arts

Designed to guide users through digital product development - including building a business plan, communicating need with stakeholders and user testing - the toolkit has been developed by Nesta, Arts Council England and the Arts and Humanities Research Council as part of their work on the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts. Read more

Academies do not perform significantly better than local authority schools, says research

A study carried out for the Local Government Association (LGA) compared the attainment of pupils at academy schools with those at maintained schools which had similar characteristics. It found that progress made by students in sponsored and “converter” academies was no greater than that of children at maintained schools. The only statistically significant difference in favour of sponsored academies was in the percentage of pupils who achieved five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C. Read more

State school students want more activities private schools offer, says study

Students in state education in the UK say their schools fail to provide enough middle class extra-curricular activities such as debating, volunteering or camping compared with their peers in private schools, according to a study backed by the Scout Association. Read more

Pupil premium fails to plug funding drop for disadvantaged schools

The NAO, which scrutinises government spending, estimates that funding per pupil in the 16 per cent most disadvantaged secondary schools fell by more than five per cent in real terms between 2010/11 and 2014/15. Read more

Child poverty definition to be changed

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said the new system would focus on the "root causes" of poverty and make a "meaningful change to children's life chances". It will include factors such as educational achievement and living in workless households as well as income. Read more

Apprenticeships: it's quality, not numbers that matter

Limited funding and an arbitrary target to recruit 3,000,000 apprentices could undermine attempts to raise the reputation of professional education. Read more

Festivals and other opportunities

Turbine’s Festival

Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall will become your playground, your local, your city. Join them for an audio-visual day of music, performance, film, installations, food and activities. They will be creating and celebrating alongside artists, dancers, chefs, DJ’s, poets, musicians and more. Read more

Chickenshed’s Free Summer Arts Festival (Sunday 12 July from 10am – 4pm)

Following the huge success of last year’s free family festival, local arts groups will once again come together for a celebration of all forms of art at Chickenshed. This year’s festival is particularly timely as 2015 sees the BBC launch its Get Creative initiative, which is a celebration of art and culture across the UK, and our Summer Arts Festival is a wonderful chance to be inspired by and get close to the local arts. Come and try your hand at a variety of arts activities as well as be entertained by different music, theatre, dance and performers from across the boroughs of Enfield and Barnet. Read more

Primary Theatre: The Comedy of Errors

Due to popular demand, the National Theatre are extending the deadline for applications to take part in the combined performance and workshop options for this year’s Primary Theatre project, The Comedy of Errors. They are now accepting applications up until 5pm on Friday 3 July. Read more

If you have any queries please contact Ruth Weyman on 020 7452 3311 or email her

My Culture Museum

Tate Modern is inviting people to contribute a photograph of an object – from personal, symbolic to monumental – that represents your own culture, to be archived into the My Culture Museum collection. Get involved