In this second of three blog posts shining a light on detail from within the recent report School Art: Where Is It? (2024), co-author Dr Carol Wild reflects on the factors influencing art and design teachers' curriculum choices, and asks how meaningful curriculum change can be effected.
Our School Art: Where is it? research followed in the fading footsteps of a previous research study School Art: What’s in it?, completed twenty years ago by Downing and Watson. When they asked art and design teachers what factors influenced their curriculum choices they had nothing to compare their answers to, but when we asked the same question to our participants we, of course, had the findings of their study in mind. We were really asking whether anything had changed over the last twenty years, and if so - why? Why the huge reduction in exposing students to 3D skills and processes, why the increase in image banks, why are today’s teachers apparently more comfortable using Richard Billingham’s 1995 photograph of his parents kissing as a resource?
Answering these questions is more complicated than might first appear. This is because what teachers say influences their curricula choices is only part of the story. There are likely to be influences that they are not oriented to see, or that are so much a part of schooling that they have simply blended into the background and do not merit mention. As with the 2004 study, we were puzzled as to why more teachers did not refer to the National Curriculum as an influencing factor, or the requirements of GCSE specifications (although the language of the GCSE assessment criteria was clearly evident). Likewise, in 2004 the internet was not as ubiquitous as it is today and was not a focus for Downing and Watson, but in 2025 it was surprising that it was not thought of by our interviewees as worth a mention. Only a few teachers spoke of resources provided by the NSEAD, or other online resources such as artpedagogy.com. It was heartening that many teachers actually referred to in-person interactions with cultural institutions as being a significant source of inspiration, whether visiting exhibitions or engaging in CPD opportunities provided by local and national art galleries, but maybe this was because such interactions were actually rare and so stuck in teacher’s memories.
It was clear to us in all areas of the research that the loss of curriculum time, staffing and resources that has been felt in the subject of art and design across England over the last 15 years has impacted the reasoning behind teachers’ curriculum choices. Many teachers spoke of doing remedial work and providing ‘foundational’ skills in Year 7 that they felt their pupils had missed out on in Primary school, although providing a robust defence of what that ‘foundation’ should involve was often missing. In most schools this involved a version of the ‘Formal Elements’, however in a few schools we found truly innovative ‘foundational’ work going on that really built student engagement. That these schools were few and far between was perhaps down to one of the major findings of our study - the considerable lack of agency that individual art teachers have to choose the content of their curriculum compared to twenty years ago - particularly when ECTs. This was often because of the demands of Multi Academy Trusts to standardise what was taught across an art and design department, or across all art and design departments in the trust. As one experienced teacher told us,
‘Many years ago, when we had a lot more curriculum time and before we became an Academy, you had a lot more freedom with what you were doing. So now the rules are that all the classes have to be doing the same thing. Whereas before you sort of go your own way... we used to do a whole project around the time of the Turner Prize looking at different types of art and what may, you know, what makes art, art - basically was the project.’
Teacher of art, Birmingham
Such sobering findings sat alongside more encouraging ones, however. Another major change since 2004 was that where interviewees did speak on an agency to affect change in curriculum content, there was one theme that predominated, that of a desire to make their curriculum more inclusive of difference. Over twenty of our participants spoke of the limited breadth of the artists studied in their curriculum and making concerted efforts to change this. Whilst it is really encouraging to know that this commitment is widespread, there is clearly a long way to go before such intentions are realised. Faced with the restrictions mentioned above, the main way that teachers find to diversify their curriculum is through the creation of large image banks (sourced from the rarely mentioned internet - see above) as the statements below are indicative of.
‘We’ve got soooo many resources about artists that we pull from.’
Teacher of art, London
‘We have parts of some lessons basically... where we just flick through slides and they’re all very different.’
Teacher of art, Bristol
This approach does little to build teachers’ own subject knowledge, to give pupils deep knowledge about the artists’ work that they study and does not engage art and design departments in the much-needed hard work of decolonising the art and design curriculum. Only one teacher expressed their concern that a ‘broad range’ of artistic sources might lead to a curriculum ‘actually, probably quite thin in many ways’ (teacher of art, Bristol), suggesting this to be a minority view. In our report, we ask whether there is more work that can be done in the initial teacher education space to equip teachers with these skills from the outset. One of our interviewees did mention their initial teacher education as a place where ‘they really got us thinking about how to deliver a broader curriculum and how to decolonise’ (teacher of art, London). However, we are aware that the lack of agency expressed by our ECT participants means that it is likely to be quite a while before newly qualified teachers are really able to enact any change.
The first blog in this series is authored by Dr Will Grant and focuses on the ‘stuff’ participants reported as the content of their curriculum and explores the experience of talking with art teachers. The third and final blog post will be authored by Dr Joanna Fursman, who will share findings on teachers’ perceived impact of the art curriculum they deliver.
About the author
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.
School Art: Where Is It? (Re)exploring Visual Art in Secondary Schools (2024) was co-authored with Dr Joanna Fursman, Leader of the PGCE Secondary Art and Design programme at Birmingham City University, and Dr Will Grant, Associate Director of the School of Arts, at UWE Bristol.
Image
Billy McGregor, Balls in Stools (Black & Yellow)
References
Downing, D. & Watson, R. (2004) School Art: What’s In It? Exploring Visual Arts in Secondary Schools. National Foundation for Education Research, Slough. Available online: nfer.ac.uk/publications/school-art-whats-in-it-exploring-visual-arts-in-secondary-schools/ (Accessed 10 April 2025).
Fursman, J., Grant, W., & Wild, C. (2024) School Art: Where Is It? (Re)exploring Visual Arts in Secondary Schools. National Society for Education in Art and Design, Corsham. Available online: nsead.org/resources/research-reports-and-reviews/school-art-where-is-it-2024/ (Accessed 10 April 2025).