How arts, culture and creativity support career education
In 2022, the government reported that the creative industries generated £124.6 billion and employed over 2.4 million people in the UK, growing at more than 4.3 times the rate of the wider economy over the past decade. Plus, the creative industries workforce represents 7.1% of all UK jobs in 2023.
Engagement with high-quality arts and culture helps children and young people develop essential skills, such as creativity, problem solving, and communication skills. So, whether your students become accountants, administrators, or want to progress their skills and passions into a career in the cultural industries, Artsmark provides the framework to ensure that creativity is embedded across the whole school.
Read on to find out about our useful resource to support you map Artsmark with your careers education, as well as signposting opportunities to help young people progress their creative skills and passions.
Artsmark careers and employability toolkit
Created by Curious Minds, in partnership with Artsmark, a toolkit has been developed to help demonstrate how creativity and cultural education play an important part in careers education and developing essential skills for children and young people.
Bringing together arts and culture with careers education develops children and young people’s understanding that working life will increasingly rely on human capacity for creativity, responsiveness, and our ability to keep learning.
This toolkit maps the Artsmark Framework to the Gatsby Benchmarks, the nationally recognised standards for high-quality careers education. Both Artsmark and the Gatsby Benchmarks require robust evidence collection to clearly demonstrate their impact. Therefore, you can use this resource to advocate for sharing evaluation resources and collaborating with colleagues to build a stronger evidence base for both Artsmark and the Gatsby benchmarks.
Enhance career prospects with National Saturday Club
The National Saturday Club gives 13-16-year-olds across the UK the opportunity to study subjects they love at their local university, college or cultural institution, for free. Offering dynamic creative learning programmes in eight subject areas. The extracurricular education model they have created works to develop young people’s skills, nurture their talents and encourage their creativity. These subjects are:
- Art and Design
- Craft and Making
- Fashion and Business
- Film and Screen
- Performance and Theatre
- Society and Change
- Writing and Talking
Saturday Clubs seek to create opportunity where it may not exist, responding to gaps in provision and experience for young people who do not have access to educational activities outside of school. The programme is structured around three core principles; it is free, it is voluntary and there are no examinations. The intention is that barriers are removed to widen participation by children and young people with diverse lived experiences.
Schools can signpost young people to a local Saturday Club. Find your local Club. If you would like the National Saturday Club to deliver a school assembly to your students about creative career possibilities and the advantages of attending a Saturday Club, please reach out to hello@saturday-club.org.
Read our blog from a National Saturday Club Youth Board Member >
Discover! Creative Careers
Discover Creative Careers is an industry-led programme that is working to ensure there is a larger and more diverse intake of talent via a broader range of routes into the creative industries.
Funded by DCMS, with additional support from Arts Council England, the programme aims to create career opportunities for more people from diverse backgrounds, drawing upon the wealth of talent that exists across the country.
This week (Monday 18 November – Friday 22 November) is Discover! Creative Careers Week, the programme’s annual flagship event. Thousands of young people aged 11 - 18 in England will take part in online and in-person careers activities with hundreds of creative industry employers. There are still ways for you to get involved if you’ve not already signed up:
- In-person events – schools may still be able to register for in-person events that creative and cultural organisations are hosting across the country next week.
- Virtual events – can’t make it to an in-person event? There’s lots going on virtually that you may still be able to register for.
- Access a host of resources – a variety of free resources are available from cultural organisations that you’re able to use in the classroom
As you can see, there are lots of ways you can inspire young people in their career progression, whether it’s in the creative industries or not. If you would like to share how Artsmark has supported young people’s careers, submit your story.
Find out about the Arts Council’s work with, and for, children and young people >