CapeUK's Background

CapeUK has been working in the field of creativity and learning through partnerships sine 1997. Our work has focused on developing long-term sustainable creative partnerships between networks of schools and creative organisations. Working initially with 24 high schools across Leeds and Greater Manchester some of our early findings were published by the NFER (National Foundation for Educational Research) in an initial evaluation which informed the thinking within the NACCCE report and in a subsequent NFER publication - ‘Partnerships for Creativity'. Used by DCMS as a model for the establishment of Creative Partnerships, CapeUK has now moved its priorities from directly supporting long-term creative partnerships between schools and creative organisations to focusing on CPD, school leadership issues and research and development programmes which explore specific areas of creativity across the curriculum and the role creative practitioners may play within this.

Research and evaluation is a critical element of our practice and over the last few years we have commissioned evaluation and research from the NFER, Bradford, Sheffield Hallam Manchester Metropolitan and Manchester Universities. We have drawn on and been influenced by research in the fields of:

Over the past two years we have been collaborating with the National College for School Leadership in developing a series of conferences and seminars on the issue of ‘Leadership for Creativity'. This has involved working with head teachers from across England to draw out issues in relation to leading a creative school. We are currently offering this to Creative Partnerships areas across England. We maintain close links with the QCA ‘Creativity Across the Curriculum' project and we are currently developing CPD materials to link in with the QCA materials on ‘Creativity - Find it Promote it'.

Since CapeUK's inception we have taken part in extensive networking both locally, nationally and internationally and seek to draw on learning and experiences from these contexts. Some examples of these are: