Cultural Education Specialist, Curriculum Support & Artsmark (COOF72)

Overview

To further support children and young people to have equitable access to arts and culture in school, the Children & Young People’s Team have developed a new national support offer for teachers, freelance teaching artists and staff from the Creative and Cultural sector. The Cultural Education Network aims to support educators to create more equitable access to Arts and Culture for children & young people. As the Cultural Education Specialist, Curriculum Support & Artsmark, you will directly advise teachers and teaching artists on day-to-day delivery and cross-curricular approaches to embedding arts, culture and creativity in the classroom using the Artsmark Framework. This will include offering support on how to teach with and through the arts, signposting additional resources, and collaborating with delivery partners. This role will conduct outreach and help build awareness of both the Cultural Education Network and the Artsmark Award, helping to increase the number of registrations and re-registrations. It will also include leadership on special projects and campaigns across both programmes.

Responsibilities

• As a member of a team of Cultural Education Specialists, you will leverage your expertise to develop professional development opportunities and share advice and best practice with teachers, school leaders and educators from the Arts & Culture sector, including freelance teaching artists.
• You will offer advice and support before and during the Artsmark journey, helping to increase the numbers of registrations and re-registrations.
• You will plan and deliver events and webinars, networking and peer learning opportunities, resources and direct one-to-one support for teachers and cultural educators.
• You will often work in collaboration with partners, freelancers, delivery agencies and practitioners.
• You will play a role in continuing the co-creation of the programme to ensure it is needs-based and responsive.
• You will respond to enquiries and build a detailed understanding of the support needs of teachers, schools, and the arts and cultural sector in your specialist and regional area.
• You will conduct internal and external outreach in your geographic region (the East and/or South East) to raise awareness of the programme and ensure joined-up approaches to outputs across the regions.
• You will lead on special projects, campaigns and income-generation initiatives that contribute to the development of the Cultural Education Network and Artsmark as requested by the Senior Manager, Cultural Education Network.
• You will ensure appropriate templates, resource materials (videos, podcasts, toolkits, etc.) and guidance are available to support schools and cultural educators to respond effectively to programme requirements and develop their work.
• You may represent the organisation at external meetings, seminars and conferences as appropriate.
• You will support stakeholder management activity, liaising directly with external stakeholders when required in a professional manner (particularly in your geographic region).
• You will contribute to the ongoing evaluation of the impact of the Cultural Education Network, keeping data on enquiries up to date and providing reports and summaries as requested by the Senior Manager, Cultural Education Network.
• You will keep up to date about developments in the cultural education sector and creativity in education, disseminating information to colleagues as required.
• You will contribute to a positive working culture in the organisation by taking a proactive approach to learning, responding to change, inclusive practice, and environmental responsibility.
• You will reflect the Nolan Principles of Public Life and the Arts Council\’s values with a commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion.
• Finally, you will contribute to the organisation’s commitment to diversity and its implications for the arts and culture, promoting a diversity perspective in all aspects of the post’s objectives and activities.

Key Internal Relationships

Whilst you have no formal Line Management responsibility, you will be expected to work in a matrixed structure that relies on collaboration and flexibility. You will work closely with the Senior Manager, Programme Manager, Programme Co-ordinator, and other Cultural Education Specialists for the Cultural Education Network. You will also work closely with Creativity Collaboratives, Artsmark and other members of the National Children, Young People and Learning team. You will also forge links to other ACE initiatives, including Place-Based Peer Learning and the Digital Culture Network, as well as alongside external partners and stakeholders. You will work closely with external delivery partners, including Goldsmiths. You will call on ACE teams in support of your work including Comms, Data & Insights, Procurement, Finance, and Information, among others. You will also work alongside external stakeholders, freelancers, creative agencies, artists and partners.

What do I need to bring to the role?

Essential (Skills, Knowledge and Behaviours)

• Experience delivering curriculum subjects in a classroom setting, preferably across multiple Key Stages.
• Experience teaching arts, culture and/or creativity to children and young people. This experience may include supporting an Artsmark journey, applying specific teaching methods and may be in subjects beyond traditional art subjects.
• Experience collaborating across curriculum subjects to embed arts, culture and/or creativity in schools.
• Experience building external partnerships and/or collaborations between schools and external partners, preferably Creative and Cultural organisations, to develop or deliver a project or programme.
• The ability to work on your own initiative and think creatively, but with good judgment about when to bring in others’ expertise as part of a matrixed team.
• The ability to communicate to individuals and groups in a persuasive, confident and engaging manner and be a good listener with the ability to understand and translate sector-specific information for different audiences.
• Skilled in using standard IT packages and the ability to learn bespoke IT systems including databases, as required, like ACE’s bespoke Customer Relationship Management system as well as Agile working tools, such as Trello (training can be provided).
• A good understanding of the Arts Council’s duty as a public body under current diversity legislation, the current diversity agenda and its relationship to the arts.

Desirable (Skills, Knowledge and Behaviours)

You might also have:

• Experience of the Artsmark Award.
• Experience training or advising educators or other professionals.
• Experience delivering action learning, mentoring or coaching
• Experience of creating learning resources and tools in creative subjects for a range of audiences.
• Experience of public programme delivery.
• Experience of co-creation methodologies, and/or programme evaluation (qualitative and/or quantitative).

We are a Disability Confident Employer and we participate in the ‘Offer an Interview’ scheme, which means that we offer an interview to any disabled candidates who meet the essential criteria for the role they’re applying to, subject to the volume of applications received. Disabled candidates, those living with a long-term condition and/ or neurodivergent candidates may be eligible for this scheme.

Our Code of Ethics requires that employees of the Arts Council are not able to receive an Arts Council grant, investment or loan funding – either in person, as a member of a partnership, or for any organisation they own. There are also limitations on board or CEO positions employees can hold in organisations we fund. For more information on this, please talk to the recruiting manager or contactrecruitment@artscouncil.org.uk

Interviews will be held virtually on the following dates:

1st:30 Sept, 01 and 02 Oct

2nd: 09 October PM and all day 10 October