Challenge London check in: Barnet and Culture for Youth
Francesca Cross from Barnet and Culture for Youth reflects on the successes of their lockdown work and how they've overcome challenges with digital delivery
A New Direction is delighted to share information of 17 programmes receiving Challenge London investment between 2018 and 2022
Since 2018, we have awarded £1.1m investment in 17 initiatives across the city with over £1.4 million committed in match investment. This represents a total of over £2.5 million committed investment in cultural education for young Londoners.
14 Challenge London investments support programmes which focus on the development of Local Cultural Education Partnerships, exploring a local-area approach and the potential for ‘place-based’ working to ensure all children and young people living or going to school in a borough have a great cultural education.
Three Challenge London investments support cross-sector partnerships between organisations with a shared ambition to deliver innovative opportunities that could bring about significant change for young people across London long-term and with the potential for scale.
The 11 by 11 Culture Bank will provide youth leadership and teacher development opportunities, including a network of Cultural Leads across Islington Schools. Culture Bank will help widen the impact of the 11 by 11 Pledge to ensure that all children and young people in Islington schools and education settings have a great cultural education and 11 inspiring cultural enrichment experiences by Year 11.
Lead Partner: London Borough of Islington, Cultural Enrichment Team
Investment from A New Direction: £50,000 over two years and three months
Partnership investment from: Dame Alice Owen Foundation
Inspiring Futures will accelerate and sustain the reach and impact of Barking & Dagenham’s Cultural Education Partnership and its INSPIRE programme, while also creating pathways into employment for young people. The programme will also aim to increase the expectation that young people will lead, influence and shape the content of the cultural provision which affects them and supports their ambition.
Lead Partner: London Borough of Barking & Dagenham, Education Service Development
Investment from A New Direction: £75,000 over three years
Partnership investment from: London Borough of Barking and Dagenham
Barnet and Culture for Youth will bring together educational and cultural assets & expertise sharing best practice and resources, testing approaches, and creating a cultural education strategy for mainstream and alternative education providers including supplementary schools, PRUs, SEN and faith schools, home schooled and looked after children.
Lead Partner: artsdepot
Investment from A New Direction: £75,000 over three years
Partnership investment from: artsdepot and John Lyons Charity
As a legacy ambition of Brent’s year as London Borough of Culture in 2020, the Brent Local Cultural Education Partnership will create the conditions in which every child and young person in the borough will have agency within, and access to, a rich, representative and inclusive local arts and cultural ecology.
Lead partner: Brent Council
Investment from A New Direction: £50,000 over 18 months
Partnership investment from: Brent Council
Camden Spark will ensure all children and young people living or being educated in Camden have access to high quality cultural and creative experiences, so that they can develop their talents and interests to progress in to further education, employment or training, within and beyond the creative and cultural industries.
Lead Partner: Camden Spark
Investment from A New Direction: £75,000 over three years
Partnership investment from: Camden Spark, London Borough of Camden and Camden STEAM Hub
A London-wide competition to identify three leading ‘boroughs of learning’, through the RSA’s flagship place-based learning and skills programme, Cities of Learning. Using the design principles of Leadership, Networks, Platform, the competition will champion the most compelling prototypes for connecting young people into learning and work opportunities in the cultural and creative industries, via new progression pathways. Which have their voice, agency, and wellbeing at the centre.
Lead Partner: RSA
Investment from A New Direction: £150,125 over one year
Partnership investment from: Ufi Charitable Trust
Creating Justice brings together three London Bubble Theatre creative programmes that support children and young people who are at risk of being involved in, or currently have experience of the criminal justice system. The programme seeks to develop a fuller understanding of the impact these programmes have on children and young people, build the evidence base for cultural activities as interventions, and improve practice and learning exchange between stakeholders and practitioners.
Lead Partner: London Bubble Theatre
Investment from A New Direction: £79,750 over three years
Partnership investment from: London Borough of Southwark, Brook Trust and Metropolitan Police Service Southwark and Lambeth Gangs Team
A Local Cultural Education Partnership for Bexley – uniting a range of educational and cultural partners to develop a creative, inclusive offer for and with children and young people in the borough.
Lead partner: Odyssey Trust for Education
Investment from A New Direction: £30,000 over 18 months
Partnership investment from: Bow Arts and Peabody Trust
Creative Wandsworth is an emerging Cultural Education Partnership in the borough of Wandsworth which aims to empower young creatives, support schools and other youth organisations and pilot creative projects to encourage creativity in young people of all ages.
Lead Partner: Enable Leisure and Culture
Investment from A New Direction: £65,000 over three years
Partnership investment from: Enable Leisure and Culture and Linden Homes
Croydon Rising is a reactive programme that will respond to the themes from the past three years of information gathering about how to improve the quality of cultural learning, including impact measurement, schools programmes and support with young people’s progression routes.
Lead Partner: Croydon Music and Arts
Investment from A New Direction: £75,000 over three years
Partnership investment from: London Borough of Croydon
The Hammersmith and Fulham LCEP will help children and young people in Hammersmith & Fulham achieve a creative and cultural childhood by establishing a working partnership between schools, arts organisations and the council. Together, they will work to create and implement an Arts Charter to implement a borough-wide arts programme.
Lead Partner: Lyric Hammersmith
Investment from A New Direction: £75,000 over three years
Partnership investment from: Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham and Hammersmith and Fulham Learning Trust
Haringey Creates is working with partners across the borough to challenge long-entrenched disparities in educational achievement and access to resources, addressing the key themes of fairness and wellbeing to improve cultural and creative opportunities for all young people.
Lead partner: Haringey Education Partnership
Investment from A New Direction: £25,000 over 15 months
Partnership investment from: London Borough of Haringey and Haringey Education Partnership
The Lambeth LCEP aims to ensure all children and young people in Lambeth benefit from a coherent, inclusive and dynamic arts and cultural offer that enriches their lives and gives them tools to succeed.
Lead Partner: London Borough of Lambeth Business, Culture and Investment
Investment from A New Direction: £75,000 over three years
Partnership investment from: London Borough of Lambeth
Making Sense is a new Local Cultural Education Partnership for Southwark, developed in response to Covid-19 and Black Lives Matter. The aim is to enhance understanding and to develop creative opportunities between local young people, teachers, practitioners and cultural organisations.
Lead partners: Mountview and South London Gallery
Challenge London investment: £46,514 over 18 months
Partnership investment from: Mountview, Art Fund, Hauser & Wirth and South London Gallery
Talking Planning is an ambitious three-year creative programme in Brent, Ealing and Hammersmith & Fulham, that will work with local young people to demystify, engage and influence the planning process of London’s largest regeneration project.
Lead Partner: Create London
Investment from A New Direction: £75,000 over three years
Partnership investment from: Good Growth Fund, Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation
Using London Borough of Culture 2019 as a catalyst, Waltham Forest will create a model of high-quality and innovative arts provision at the heart of young people’s learning, bringing together education and arts organisations in a new sustainable partnership.
Lead Partners: London Borough of Waltham Forest Culture Team and Waltham Forest Music Education Hub
Investment from A New Direction: £75,000 over three years
Partnership investment from: London Borough of Waltham Forest
A Local Cultural Education Partnership aiming to provide a high-quality universal cultural offer for all children and young people in Ealing while redressing geographic imbalances and reducing inequalities for young people from ethnic minority groups and lower socio-economic backgrounds by providing a structure for collaborative working, sharing and joining the dots. The partnership puts young people, their needs and dreams, in the driving seat with a co-creation model.
Lead partner: Ealing Council
Challenge London investment: £50,000 over 18 months
Partnership investment from: Ealing Learning Partnership, London Borough of Ealing, Historic England and John Lyon's Foundation
Francesca Cross from Barnet and Culture for Youth reflects on the successes of their lockdown work and how they've overcome challenges with digital delivery
Tom Kenyon reflects on The RSA’s Cities of Learning London Competition and shares insights from running an accelerated online programme in response to COVID-19
Maggie Connolly tells us how the pandemic has provided opportunities to more fully focus their work on the needs of their communities
Sharon Trotter, Waltham Forest CEP Lead, looks back on the first two years of the partnership & shares the successes and challenges of embedding cultural learning in the borough
Amelia Hart tells us how Inspiring Futures engaged over 1,200 young people across Barking and Dagenham in an ambitious Arts Award project during lockdown