Royal Ballet and Opera – Cultural Champions partnership project in Dorset

Royal Ballet and Opera (RBO) are working with Dorset partners to offer their highly regarded Cultural Champions programme in Dorset next academic year.

Cultural Champions is Royal Ballet and Opera’s long running, middle leadership development programme, designed especially for those who lead or champion – or are driven to develop their leadership or support for – the arts creativity and culture in schools.

This programme is designed to support the development of middle leaders in relevant subject areas – ideally including music, but also drama, art, design, even English or history – and support their professional development as leaders strategically developing the cultural life of their school, and articulating its impact.

“This is an opportunity to develop cultural provision across schools, with a view to creating lasting change.  It’s not just about curriculum progression in the arts.  It’s about using the arts to build community, encourage participation (perhaps from non-attenders or hard-to-reach families), improve outcomes for disadvantaged children, using the arts to help with SEND provision and much more.  It will encourage leaders to think creatively about how the arts could have a really positive impact on their school and their school community.  It will also offer development of teachers as leaders within their settings.”

With face-to-face delivery with middle leaders for a day in September 26 and a 3-hour twilight in April 27 – likely to be in or near Dorchester –  and three 2 hour online modules across the year. There is also a request of commitment from a member of SLT from each school to participate in 2 modules (one half day and one twilight).

Here is a video about Cultural Champions: https://youtu.be/KBdTgmICUBY

About Cultural Champions:

  • A FREE, accredited programme, for teachers who champion the arts, creativity and culture in their schools with substantial evidence of impact from over 1,000 educators who have already participated nationally.
  • A personalised, enquiry-led programme, taking into account each champion’s nuanced starting position, enabling them to develop knowledge, skills and confidence to empower change across their unique setting.
  • The year-long programme is delivered via a range of creative facilitation techniques that deepen reflective practice and incorporates a personalised research initiative that enables Champions to apply their leadership skills to their current school priorities straight away.
  • The year-long programme (Sept – May) consists of 1 full day (in-person, local to Dorchester) and 4 twilight modules (2 of which would be online and 2 in-person) of training (13 hrs. in total). 
  • Alongside these modules, we also provide artform development opportunities via our Create CPD in Dance, Design and Sing which supports Cultural Champions and/or their colleagues to develop their curriculum through accessing award winning plans, resources and live lessons.  RBO would arrange for these training sessions to also occur in Dorset next academic year.
  • In addition, headteachers from participating schools would be invited to a yearly Headteacher symposium and the Cultural Champions would also be invited to a yearly Cultural Champions symposium.  These would be invitations that could be accepted during any year (forever!).
  • Teachers would also be offered school matinee tickets for RBO performances.

The challenge of empowering the arts, creative, and cultural learning in schools is no longer simply about acquiring skills.  We need to build capacity to reflect on ingrained practices and assumptions, inspire new thinking and opportunities, and use enquiry-based practices to enable change, taking into account the leader and setting’s unique starting position.  

Here is a video about Cultural Champions: https://youtu.be/KBdTgmICUBY

This is the commitment needed from schools to take part in the programme:

  • At least one member of staff from each school would need to commit to the programme.  Ideally this would include the music lead, but could also/alternatively include someone who has responsibility for drama/design/art or even history/English.  The cost of cover will be the responsibility of each school.  The cost of taking part in the whole programme is completely fully funded by RBO.
  • For modules 1 and 6 (one half day and one twilight), RBO require a member of SLT from each of the participating schools to attend, in addition to the nominated members of staff.  This is to ensure that someone from SLT understands the programme in more detail and so can support the relevant staff member in follow-up work.  However, in very small schools, there would be some flexibility with this extra SLT attendance.
  • The delivery of the project would involve one whole day for modules 1 & 2 (in-person, at a local cultural venue) and 4 twilight sessions (mostly 2 hours, with the last module being 3 hours).  
  • The delivery dates are as follows:  
  • Module 1 & 2: Tuesday 22nd September, 10am – 3:30pm  (in-person, location TBC)
  • Module 3: Tuesday 10th November, 4 – 6pm online
  • Module 4: Tuesday 19th January,  4 – 6pm online
  • Module 5: Tuesday 2nd March 4 – 6pm online
  • Module 6: Tuesday 20th April,  4 – 7pm  (in-person, location TBC)

Here is a link to RBO website for more information:  https://www.rbo.org.uk/schools/resource/cultural-champions-2526

If you would like to nominate a colleague to take part in this exciting opportunity, please follow this link (select the Dorset locality option):  https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=iZe2pGg4AkODQF0F4OOYhK5Stk8coZxKgnYrdoR61_1UQ09TV1FOOU9OWlk0T0E5UTVTMlAzUEI5WCQlQCN0PWcu&route=shorturl

The deadline for applying is Friday 19th June.

We are very excited to be able to bring this opportunity from this exciting national organisation to our local schools.