In 2016, John Lyon’s Charity awarded a Small grant to College Park School of £5,000 to run an inclusive arts festival across College Park and QEII schools. Due to the initial success of this first grant in engaging young people with special needs and disabilities, John Lyon’s Charity has since awarded two further grants under the Main Grants Fund totalling £206,000 to extend this partnership from College Park and QEII schools to other special schools in the Beneficial Area.
Last year, John Lyon’s Charity awarded a further £50,000 per annum for three years (150k total) to support the creation of a West London Inclusive Arts Festival and expand into more schools and form more arts partnerships. This was after College Park School – a local authority-maintained school for children aged 4-19 years old with complex learning difficulties, identified an obvious need to work on a strategic level to develop inclusive arts activities for young people with Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND).
Since launching, West London Inclusive Arts Festival has formed many partnerships, which focus on the development of arts and drama projects within schools. It explores cultural venues, has a subsequent multi-faceted residency at The Lyric and a dedicated CPD event to bring together teachers and cultural institution staff to share knowledge and understanding. This work has also led to the development of the Cultural Inclusion Manifesto, which was launched in January 2019 at the House of Lords with over 100 signatories.
The West London Inclusive Arts Festival has gone from strength to strength and now includes six school partners (College Park School, QEII Jubilee School, Cambridge School, St Ann’s, Springhallow School and Queensmill School) and five cultural partners (The Wallace Collection, Lyric Theatre Hammersmith, Royal Albert Hall, Tri-borough Music Hub and Institute of Imagination). The West London Inclusive Arts Festival is the epitome of what ‘Partnership’ stands for. This particular project has evidenced that long-term, sustained relationships develop the understanding needed to ensure young people with SEND are included in the wider cultural community. The West London Inclusive Arts Festival has made excellent progress developing high-quality immersive arts experiences with children and young people. Its growth from an initial six partners to eleven demonstrates the interest in SEND young people and the arts but also the credibility of the partnership and quality of the programmes it has delivered thus far.
The project is an exemplary example of how arts organisations and special schools can work effectively together, using the key principles identified in the Charity’s Perspectives work. Each organisation brings its own expertise to the table and are all valued for what they bring to the partnership. This sharing of resources, knowledge and expertise has created a really innovative and special project for young people with SEND which is tailor-made to the needs of the young people in each school.