Between 2015 and 2018, A New Direction’s London Cultural Education Challenge supported new creative programmes contributing to our three programme aims:

  • Constructing sustainable, innovative partnerships for the delivery of cultural education across London
  • Providing better cultural education outcomes for young people (0-25) in London
  • Generating new sources of funding to improve cultural education opportunity

And six programme themes, represented in our infographic set here.

A New Direction ran two processes inviting applications for investment across the period; one in 2015 and one in 2016/2017. We invested just under £900,000 across the three years of the programme, with an additional £960,000 contributed from a range of partners.

You can find out more about the 2015-18 work by watching the film and listening to the podcast below:

If you're having trouble viewing this video, please click here.

A transcript of the podcast is available here.

You can also read the programme summary and reflection document written by A New Direction’s Senior Partnerships Manager, Corinne Bass and the four Action Research reflection reports by Dawn Langley, who ran the Action Research process throughout the programme below:

You can also hear from our programme partners on their experiences and advice for others starting on the journey in our first Challenge podcast.


The London Cultural Education Challenge 2015-18 in Numbers

  • Over 13,000 young people were involved in programmes in which A New Direction invested between 2015 and 2018
  • Activity took place in half of London’s boroughs
  • Over 700 organisations were involved in delivering, planning and supporting the programmes
  • A New Direction has committed £868,000 and partners have shown £960,000 in parallel investment making the total programme investment £1.8million

A New Direction would like to pass on our sincere thanks to everyone who was involved.