School Art: Where Is It? (Re)exploring Visual Art in Secondary Schools.

Twenty years later, they replicate the processes employed by Downing and Watson – asking secondary school art teachers across England about the curriculum they deliver: its contents, structure, and impact.

Candid interviews with 36 participants provide illustrative insight into the state of art education in England’s secondary schools in 2024. Through comparison, contextualisation, and critical reflection, Fursman, Grant, and Wild construct a new set of questions for today’s policymakers and practitioners.

The report illustrates:

• The content of the art curriculum at Key Stage 3 and 4. For example the report identifies a drop in the number of projects involving 3D materials, techniques, and process from 56% in 2004 to just 15% in 2024.
• The factors influencing the choice of art curriculum content. Teachers feel that the National Curriculum has minimal impact on art curriculum content choice, while limitations on teaching time and art materials does have impact. 

As Michele Gregson, General Secretary of NSEAD, writes in her foreword to the report:

'Much has changed since the first School Art report was commissioned. The education landscape is more fractured. Changes to the inspection framework, austerity, pandemic, and progress measures have all had an impact on what, why, and how we teach art, craft and design. The potential of contemporary art practice to make a distinctive contribution to the curriculum is as relevant in 2024 as it was in 2004, but our definition and understanding of what that might mean, and what (and who) is being ignored have shifted.'

Read the full report.

About the Authors

Dr Joanna Fursman is Leader of the PGCE Secondary Art and Design programme at Birmingham City University. Joanna’s research and art practice examines non-normative representations of education through photography and film-making to critically explore the distinct field of pedagogy and it’s appearances in contemporary art-practice and the photographic image.

Dr Will Grant is Associate Director of the School of Arts, at UWE Bristol. His research interests are focused on sustaining prospective art educators’ idealism when faced with technocratic classrooms, and reimagining means for initial teacher education to provide authentic, disciplinary induction.

Dr Carol Wild is Leader of the PGCE Secondary Art and Design programme at the Institute of Education, UCL. Carol’s research is motivated by a long-term interest in the symbiotic relationship between the art and design teacher, their classroom, and their pedagogy, that come into being together with their students. 

Image: ‘Balls and Stools Series (Blue and Red)' by Billy McGregor .