Galleries and exhibitions often present reflective questions alongside works of art in an exhibition, but what if instead of promoting art historical engagement, they’re limiting it?
On a recent visit to Nottingham Castle I found myself making connections between the way we were being guided to interact with displays and some of the theory I’ve been studying; discussing how the status of objects moves between zones of authenticity and categories of cultural artefact and masterpiece. I started to consider if the prompts provided were steering reflection towards a view of art as cultural artefact, and whether that restricts the way visitors engage with art.
Alongside the permanent collection was a display of items from their store, not usually on public view, selected by community groups as part of an engagement project. The thoughts and reactions of individuals in these groups were displayed alongside the items which included paintings, household objects and personal items saved for posterity. I wish I’d taken more photos, but here’s an idea:
You can see a couple of the paintings on display: A large, Elizabethan painting, Portrait of a Lady Called ‘Countess of Nottingham’ (c.1547-1603) (Catherine Carey) attributed to John de Critz the elder; and Mailbag, a 1983 oil on canvas by Lisa Milroy of a contemporaneous postbag with letters and parcels poking out. Next to the art (hung at just the right height to avoid spotlight glare and have a good peer) are photos of the community members alongside them in the store, with their reflections. Above each image is a big question, ‘What stories should we tell?’ and ‘What makes something valuable?’ respectively.
The questions and responses on the wall were similar to things seen in other exhibitions, particularly engaging with gallery and museum education. The portrait was discussed along the lines of class and status, reaction to visible items such as the jewellery, and a comment about the ruff and how was that ever fashion/ what were they thinking. The postbag prompted comments about how you don’t get post nowadays, memories of airmail envelopes and relatives that used to be a postman. Elsewhere were comparisons with holidays, then and now, here and there. Nowhere was there the sort of comment on the art I’ve been getting used to doing myself, and I realised the art was being reflected on for its status of cultural artefact; driven in part by the questions being asked.
There is nothing wrong with what was happening, it’s a valuable part of art history. My concern lies with what wasn’t happening, and how this is replicated across gallery, museum and exhibition in the way engagement is steered.
I also don’t think it’s purely down to the presentation; the presentation is reacting to something too. There was evidence of visual analysis being used to identify things – different country, time, mood; and perhaps what was happening was a lack of pre-iconographical discussion, jumping straight into a sort of iconography and iconology. There are various reasons for this. Of course, a lot of modern and contemporary art is created as a process, or response to a process, which makes that part of the analysis more natural. We use familiar reference points to interpret our environment, and this lends itself to a certain way of thinking about art, particularly (and this is probably central) as we analyse things as artefacts in education all the time as we grow up, but the closest we get to repeated formal analysis of art is probably literature. If we aren’t encouraged to explore art, at least alongside artefact, in art galleries; then where?
Going back to the art history theory stuff, this is thing on my mind: James Clifford’s (1988) adaptation of Greimas’ “semiotic square” which demonstrates this movement of status between artefact and masterpiece I mentioned briefly, explains how the ‘everyday’ can begin to represent a culture, and the ordinary can be displayed and seen in a new light; but it can go both ways. I wonder if the status of art is changing through engagement.
I think there are some places where the stability of this status is more fragile, and that’s regional museums and galleries, where the very allocation of ‘local’ creates a label of ‘cultural’ in a way that a national gallery is more able to promote ‘masterpiece’. It’s this that I’m exploring as part of my final module assessment this year.
I’ve written about some of the ways I think we can promote art history in the pre-university curriculum and the barriers we face, and I’m starting to think school art education gets stuck at artefact (still valid), and it’s because that’s a more familiar way of analysing things. With this in mind, another area for consideration now is how wider community engagement with art history is supported. It’s one thing to weave in methods to KS2 lessons, but another to promote the subject as a valid option when narrowing subject choices, particularly with parents. Changing perceptions of art history is part of that, and one place to start is to think about where people currently experience art history: galleries.
This isn’t the place to solve that (though I have ideas), but it’s worth considering how simple it could be. An example springing to mind is the information sheets to hand in the Rijksmuseum Gallery of Honour (again, wish I’d taken a photo). Selected works are accompanied by A3 laminated sheets with the image and various features/ techniques highlighted to help view the paintings. These are paintings that hold a status of national artefact, and also masterpiece; these A3 sheets guide visitors to engage with both. I don’t think it takes too much to start rethinking how we could weave something like this in more regularly, and if we do, I wonder if the seeds of art history could at least be watered.
Reference: Clifford, J. (1988) ‘On collecting art and culture’, in The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth Century Ethnography, Literature and Art, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, pp. 215–29
For the first time in a long time, I’m receiving feedback on my work. Not the feedback on practice that happens as an adult in a school, not co-constructed developmental stuff or for the purposes of quality assurance; it’s the wrestle over mountains of theory, spend three days cutting 1500 words, feedback on your application of learning feedback.
I am studying something that I love but something I’ve never studied before, and coming into this I was fully prepared to try the first year and consider the second as I went along. Three essays in and I’m doing well, but it feels really flat. How come every time I’ve had a grade I’ve been left with that niggle of something being wrong that hangs around, and I’m wondering why I feel a bit down for a couple of days before realising this is it? My realisation is that it comes down to how I’m receiving feedback.
Professionally, I’m used to using two types of feedback. The sort I give to pupils that’s scaffolded, addresses misconceptions and helps move them forward with their learning; and the sort that’s about having conversations with adults which tend to be a bit more collaborative but to the point. As an adult learner I recognise that my needs sit somewhere in between – I need the feedback to move me forward, but I have enough experience that I can do some reading between the lines and it doesn’t have to be ‘two stars and a wish’. Or so I thought.
I completed my MEd with the Open University over a decade ago, so this is my second experience of the way the OU works. When I first studied with them they were moving away from face-to-face tutorials in favour of online forums and meetings. There are clear benefits of this, but it was a time when I wasn’t used to online meetings and despite the hours of travelling involved, I chose my modules based on them having actual meetings with a tutor and fellow students. This time round I don’t have that option. There is definitely more use made of the forums now, and that pesky pandemic has made people much more comfortable with online video tutorials, however a real downside is the lack of relationship with the tutor – one of the knock-on effects of which is that feedback isn’t landing as well.
The OU is good at understanding students will be starting with different levels of experience and different complications of home life. This, I’ve always found, makes for a decent level of explanation and guidance, so there’s definitely something to hang the feedback off. Perhaps it’s about expectations. Helpfully or not, my tutor started by essentially telling us that it’s very unusual for people to do well in their first module, nobody tends to get a distinction, and we only need to get 50% to pass so don’t worry if it seems low. I’m sure it was meant to reassure, but I think it would’ve been more helpful to then outline some common ways people can generally improve.
In terms of the actual feedback I’m receiving, unless I contact my tutor with a query, this is limited to feedback on my essays. This is provided as a summary comment and tracked changes through the body of my text. I’ve had to get used to my tutor’s technique for this and it’s worth mentioning as I think it’s partially responsible for the flat feeling. It’s apparent that as they read, they add their in-the-moment thoughts. As a consequence, I have the occasional ‘nice’, ‘good’; variations on ‘Why have you written this, oh, perhaps it’s introducing that’; and in my latest one, a glorious ‘That’s unusual use of an ellipsis’ with no further comment (it wasn’t, I’d just chopped out part of a hefty quote). The other element is the summary feedback, which focuses mainly on what’s wrong. I obviously need to know this, and it’s not that I don’t agree with it (sometimes it’s about my steep learning curve, sometimes it’s about a thing I cut for wordcount), but the effect of it is a form of negativity bias as I focus on the bad bits and ignore the good.
All this serves to throw a light on an element of feedback that I think can become ignored amongst the theory and principles – how it makes people feel.
In my essay feedback, the principles of good feedback are there to be seen; it’s the same for adults as it is for children (bar a bit more background knowledge and the need for a bit more collaborative discussion). The thing I’m taking away is about the reaction to the feedback and how we can recognise and control that. Sometimes we do it perceptively through experience, but I’d like to think about being more conscious about it and how it lands. As a receiver of feedback it helps to understand where the feedback’s coming from and where it’s heading. As an adult, I can fill in some of these gaps, and as an adult engaging in voluntary, self-led learning, where it’s heading is partly down to me. Children don’t tend to have the benefit of this process, and we need to be more explicit.
We can’t avoid telling children what went wrong and how to fix it, but we need to reinforce why the good is good, and be aware that as the good stuff becomes more consistent, and children become more self-regulated in their learning, the good still needs to be referenced – the more we know, the more we’re aware of what we don’t know and this can be overwhelming. Central to everything is the relationship we are able to build with our learners so we learn to recognise where we need to shift our tone or have a quiet word over public comment. We have the privilege of this opportunity and we need to grasp it.
I love what I’m learning, and I love the challenge it’s offering. I signed up for this, and I know enough about the processes involved to fill the gaps. Yet, if I’m in this position and feel the fug, I know the chances are it’s going to be worse for some of our pupils when they don’t have these privileges. What they do have it us there with them, knowing them. Maybe it’s worth taking a moment to clock how feedback’s landing.
In part 1, I commented on a recent report looking at the state of the pre-university art history offer in England. The findings have been used to point towards the decline of the subject, identify what’s gone wrong and find potential solutions. One suggestion that caught my edu-nerd eye was the idea that the way we are teaching art history is wrong, so I’m unpicking whether that could be the case, and where there might be solutions.
My initial reaction isn’t necessarily that it’s the way we teach art history, but the way it’s promoted; there’s a (perceived) focus on the art side over the history side, despite the A level being History of Art, and demonstrating parallels with prior experience of history education over art education may be one way to promote the subject to a new demographic. Other things have sprung to mind though, so here’s what I’ve been thinking…
Solution 1: Tackling ‘relevance’
Relevance is important to attract students in any subject, but relevance doesn’t mean short-form content on Tik-Tok and adding in a dash of AI. The independent schools and colleges offering qualifications in art history have the advantage of being able to point to hundreds of successful alumni as evidence of relevance, but the state sector has to work harder. This is where the first seeds of ‘let’s look further down the curriculum’ are planted. I see art history having a similar job to play (and similar challenges) as English Literature. Lots of potential students, and their parents, will ask how it’s going to be useful and there will be answers that cover essay writing skills to be developed, critical evaluation and opinion-forming standing students in good stead, but A level isn’t the end point of learning and part of the answer is they are entitled to a seat at the table. There’s an importance in acknowledging that they belong in that world too; to understand, appreciate, heck, even to have knowledge that wins them four pints in a pub quiz.
One current option for accessing art history education is Art History Link Up who provide free art history education to underrepresented students. Through an accessible system that doesn’t skimp on provision, hundreds of students who wouldn’t study art history are shown it is relevant for them. Whilst colleges and 6th Forms can claim the fees back themselves, it’s still a Saturday and self-led offer.
So, does art history need a PR drive? Does it need outreach in the instance of non-specialist teachers? Can it be fed into in other areas; AQA Unit Awards Scheme, ASDAN, modules in other courses? Look at IB? Extended projects? It’s still not going to get most pupils.
Solution 2: Keystage 1-3
Gregory Perry, CEO of Association for Art History, has suggested that engagement at a younger age might be an answer. The curriculum is packed already, so we need to be careful of suggestions that merely add content and we also need to be conscious of teacher knowledge. In an ideal world, what would be want pupils to be able to do? What are the important things to know as a cultural entitlement, and what might we want to prepare them to access at a higher level?
The national curriculum for art and design is notoriously vague, and, generally, I think this is a good thing given the fluid notion of a ‘canon’ and the lack of space in the curriculum to cover everything. The 2023 Ofsted research review for art and design identifies three domains of knowledge for a good curriculum – practical knowledge (developing technical proficiency), theoretical knowledge (cultural and contextual content) and disciplinary knowledge (how art is studied, discussed and judged) – seems like a lot of art history in there. There’s an opportunity to lay the foundations for future engagement and schools are already doing this to varying degrees. A lot rests on the knowledge and expertise of teachers to deliver a rounded offer; this is where external organisations can support, and there’s real promise here.
The niggle I have with Perry’s comments that “Younger students look at things without baggage and they’re inquisitive.” is that the baggage is the important stuff! Primary schools are doing the non-baggage bit, but until children have different ideas to wrestle with as they progress through school, there’s a risk it’s just trivia. I think it’s GCSE that’s probably the pinch point.
Solution 3: GCSE
There’s currently no formal art history qualification until A-level, not that that’s unusual. The history of art A level joins up with GCSE to some extent, but GCSE art and design is essentially about project management and very broad on what can be included; at present, there’s no requirement for written annotations.
As a thought experiment, I’ve tried to think of ways to do it either as part of the existing course, or as a new GCSE.
- Set themed artworks to analyse and link to externally set task.
- Something like poetry analysis – analyse a new image and compare with a studied work from an anthology in an exam.
- Externally set task based on an artist/ period rather than theme.
- Additional specification title (like ‘textile design’ or ‘photography’). Cambridge OCR currently offer ‘Critical and Contextual Studies’ as a specification which is the closest we have but still assessed through creative response.
- Include in another GCSE – there’s nothing to say this needs to be the preserve of the art department, could be more explicitly in history.
- A new history of art GCSE that doesn’t require a creative response; maybe something broader that links in with other A level subjects like sociology or political studies.
Art is often badged as a non-academic option, and certainly the lack of terminal written exam is one of the reason some of my boys fly with it, but I think the ‘easy’ badge is stuck to art history the same way the ‘posh’ one is, and partly comes from a misunderstanding of what’s involved.
Realistically, the best bet for change is the Keystage 1-3 offer feeding through alongside GCSE delivery that keeps up. Some schools offer art history in their curriculum and maybe naming it where it happens is a start. If we combine this with other ways schools can get involved with art more widely e.g. Cultural Rucksack, Arts Award we might begin to create a common vocabulary that includes art history and what it can offer, at any level of education. As this filters through the system, perhaps the art historical canary will live.
In a response to Part 1, Bendor Grosvenor mentioned an interest in finding out more about the French system specifically. Setting aside that studying art history in France has the PR points built in, and there seem to be methodological differences in different countries that align with their roots in art history, a brief search suggests a key difference in the French system is offering a more vocational angle with explicit linking of teaching to curation, for example. I think it’s worth a deeper look at how art history is approached in different countries as I suspect the teaching of art history is affected by the history of art history just as much as the history of the art they’re studying is. Another time, perhaps.
A 2025 report by The Association for Art History (AAH) evaluating access to art history study at the pre-university level in England has prompted cries that study of art history is facing a decline. In a response to the initial reaction, Gregory Perry, CEO of Association for Art History, clarified that despite changes in A level engagement, undergraduate entrants remain roughly the same, in an environment where other course numbers in the arts and humanities are declining. All might not be lost, but this is set against a backdrop where several schools predict they will cease offering history of art in the near future, and it’s at least worth considering this might be the art historical canary in the mine.
Looking at the AHH report, it’s a snapshot of the current situation in centres offering the History of Art A level, alongside some additional context. They are explicitly looking at the numbers teaching it and what’s happening with those figures; it doesn’t try to find out anything from centres who don’t offer History of Art and students who aren’t taking it. If we’re to look at what can be done to support the wider teaching of art history, using this data has echoes of examining bullet holes on returning WWII bombers to identify areas for reinforcement – if we focus solely on the institutions that are still managing to teach it, we risk diagnosing the wrong problem.
So, what is the problem?
There are arguments that cover the (self-fulfilling?) elitism of art history, the lack of diversity in the sector, a general shift away from humanities and trend towards subjects linked to careers with high enough wages to both live and pay off university debts, but there’s one argument that caught my eye and that is “are we teaching it right?”
In his regular ‘Diary of an Art Historian’ column for The Art Newspaper, Dr Bendor Grosvenor points to the way art history is currently taught as the key to its decline. Now, my only experience of being taught the subject is by reading a ridiculous amount of books and embarking on another masters; somewhat of a leap from the post-16 engagement under discussion. But thoughts on education are something I feel equipped for, so I’m diving in.
First up, how are we teaching it now? Bendor’s initial criticism is that, in an attempt to make art history relevant, ‘visual literacy’ is touted as the way forward. Do I think visual literacy is important? Yes. Do I think that’s what art history is all about? No. I actually think it does the subject a massive disservice to concentrate it down to this, and far from making it modern, it’s screams loud and clear “we don’t think this is still relevant!” For me, the answer is to lean into the academia – the history, the philosophy, the sociology – not to deny it.
A quick look over the A level spec shows a subject that is pretty solid. Unseen visual analysis, broad enough themes and period choice to get a good overview and still allow teachers to be secure in a specialism. I don’t think there’s a problem in what we’re teaching here, but what I do think is glaring is that this is not an ‘art’ subject that most students will be familiar with, and it’s where I start to lean towards the history side over the art side.
I’d argue that art history would probably be more accessible if it’s thought of as branch of history. Many pupils will be familiar with engaging with sources and artefacts; the opportunity to use art to see a journey, changes over time, reactions in politics or cultures. We already teach students to engage with images when we can’t visit or see an artefact and, from this point of view, it’s a natural progression. If it’s made more accessible at A level, perhaps a change in perception would work through to university uptake.
How much interest is there likely to be?
Ofqual publishes filterable data on the combinations of A levels taken by 18-year-olds each year. In 2025, 281,800 students took at least one A level, and whilst the data only includes subjects taken by 2500 students or more, so History of Art at 838 (including those not 18 years) doesn’t feature, it’s interesting to see where there are signs that there might be uptake were courses to be available.
‘Art’ is separated into different specifications and only ‘art: fine art’ and ‘art: photography’ feature in the top 25 single subjects, at 4.5% and 3.3% of students respectively.* Filtered to show combinations of three A levels, 1,515 (0.5%) students took any art and history, and filtered to show two A levels, 2,490 (0.8%) did. 8% of all fine art students, the most popular art, taking three A levels also took history – that’s not low and offers a hint that History of Art may at least be of interest. Furthermore, the ‘third’ A level taken by ‘art’ + history students repeatedly features English literature, psychology, sociology and political studies – all of which feature strongly as part of art history.
*There are actually 30 students who took both together, so I don’t want to faff about combining the figures too much.
The AHH report doesn’t include the voices of those who aren’t teaching the subject or students who haven’t had the opportunity to choose it, so it would be interesting to see some wider data. Of course, A level is one thing and no matter how many northern, state institutions offer a subject, it is only ever going to attract a particular cohort. My hunch is that the real issue lies further down the curriculum, and that’s where things turn into more of a thought experiment. How we prepare young people to access a higher-level curriculum is wrapped up in the ongoing learning and experiences they encounter from an early age. If we see fit to criticise the way we promote and teach a subject further up the chain, we need to cast a glance in the other direction too.
In part two I’ll consider where art history fits into the existing curriculum, where there are opportunities for small changes, and some (fanciful) ideas about where bigger opportunities lie…
Some New Year changes come crashing in with big ‘new year, new me’ promises, and, as it turns out, some slip in under the radar with the reading of a book.
As is usual, today is a day peppered with reflection and thinking towards the year ahead. This time last year I was powering through The Invention of British Art by Bendor Grosvenor. Armed with my general (and accidental professional) interests in art and history, the two were smashing together, causing waves that I wouldn’t have predicted.
I’ve written bits about what happened next – hungry for more learning, I signed up to free Open Learn courses (I’m on 13, list with links below), discovered the wonderful Lillian Cespedes-Gonzalez PhD, a Spanish historian who delivers free* art history lectures, and almost all my reading for 2025 has been art history related (list of books below); by the spring I needed something else. I was building up all this information, the introductions to art history were forming a familiar pattern, but I didn’t have anything to challenge my thinking or a way of synthesising this new knowledge. I started to explore more formal qualifications and returned time and again to the OU Art History MA website.
I pro’d and con’d repeatedly. It was expensive, time consuming, assumed an undergraduate level of knowledge, warned of the academic content, but I could afford to try the first year, this subject was already all-consuming, I’d read all the pre-reading for fun, academic I’m comfortable with (the visual analysis very not so much). I signed up.
I can’t describe** how overwhelmingly I love it. It’s so different to my experience studying for my MEd over a decade ago. I’m feeling the pressure, particularly with assignments, but that’s my own pressure; I’m learning for pure enjoyment and what an absolute privilege that is. I’ve never properly studied anything that wasn’t about next-steps for education or career enhancement and I feel so lucky to be able to this.
It really is a privilege. I’ve been repeatedly prompted to think about my own learning and it’s glaring that despite me being a novice in this subject, how different my experience is to the novices we teach day-in, day-out. I have the privilege of motivation and faith in the structure of the course when it seems massive. I have the privilege of money and can afford to follow this in a way I know many people couldn’t. I have the privilege of existing knowledge that’s helped me from all over the place.
We talk about a broad and balanced curriculum preparing children for a future they don’t know yet, well I’m drawing on my GCSEs in literature, languages, dance (I know); my A levels in English language and History, but I also have this bank of half-remembered snippets stored on holidays, visiting museums, listening to tour bus guides (shout out to City Sightseeing) and even researchED conferences (a further shout out to Sputnik Steve sparking a connection to Foucault and the phrase ‘critical ontology’ – used that bad-boy to centre an essay already). My resolve that we support children to experience everything we possibly can and give them that privilege is only getting stronger. As a sort of aside, delighted by the event of (20)25/ 52 weeks a year, and unconnected to the as yet unknown art history obsession, I spent the last year posting a weekly art book under #52ArtBooks25 and it really goes to show how much art we’ve experienced just because we enjoy it – I’d love that for my boys.
To the New Year…
As we launch ourselves into 2026 (dutifully make our #LemonPig and settle down to watch The Thomas Crown Affair perfectly timed to end just before the bongs), my goals aren’t big.
I don’t have plans of what I’m going to do with all my new learning, but I’m only three months in and already hungry for more. There are so many things I don’t know, and so many things I want to see and places I want to visit. Applying learning was the missing thing for me. ChatGPT can help pull out ideas or work through an explanation, but it’s not the same as applying your learning and wrestling with a base of ideas.
Having settled in the ‘this is huge, I don’t actually know anything’ dip for a bit, I’m getting more confident with developing a perspective. I’ve got half-written posts responding to the 2025 Turner Prize result, art and SEND, and the Association for Art History report on the state of pre-university art history opportunities, so I’ll finish those.
Work has its own challenges with new roles in curriculum development and chairing a cross-trust steering group exploring AI, plus a potential to keep working with Nottingham Contemporary which I loved (might write on that once reports are published).
On the personal front, despite us looking delightfully youthful, next year marks our 20th wedding anniversary when we’re getting all the niblings together for the first time which should be chaotic and fun. Hopefully we’ll get back to Japan too where we had our honeymoon and went to mark 10 years.
I leave 2025 grateful for an awakened enthusiasm and for all the things I’ve done in the 43 years previously that help me pursue it (and to Bendor for writing his book, obvs). When it comes to 2026 it’s probably best not to make any big plans- I’ve got a Masters to do after all. And it turns out the most exciting adventures can happen by accident.
*she’s starting to think about charging models to keep it sustainable **I really need to get used to describing stuff, it’s a big part of the gig now
Things I enjoyed before the hardcore studying. Happy to recommend stuff if anyone’s interested:
Open Learn Courses (varying levels):
Art and the Mexican Revolution
Artists and authorship: the case of Raphael
Dutch painting of the Golden Age
Travelling for culture: the Grand Tour
Art and visual culture: medieval to modern
Books
John Berger Ways of Seeing
Patrick Bringley All The Beauty In The World
Michael W. Cothren and Anne D’Alleva Methods and Theories of Art History
Anne D’Alleva How to Write Art History
Steve Edwards (Ed.) Art and Its Histories: A Reader
E.H. Gombrich The Story of Art
Bendor Grosvenor The Invention of British Art
Charles Harrison An Introduction to Art
Michael Hatt and Charlotte Klonk Art History: A critical introduction to its methods
Penelope Murray Genius: The History of an Idea
Robert S. Nelson and Richard Schiff (Eds.) Critical Terms for Art History
Marcia Pointon History of Art: A Students’ Handbook
Grant Pooke and Diana Newall Art History: The Basics
Donald Preziosi (Ed.) The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology
Anyone who’s spent time learning about CPD has spent time considering the question of what we call it. Continuous, continual, continued, PD, CPDL, CPL – lots of fine-tuned definitions, all discussed at the start of any training course. Schools now find themselves with another entry into the mix thanks to Ofsted.
In their systematic review and meta-analysis for the EEF (2021), Sam Sims and colleagues begin with an acknowledgement that across the literature, there is no consistent definition of professional development. Very purposefully, in the new inspection toolkit, Ofsted have chosen to define what they expect through the term ‘professional learning’. They want to highlight the importance of programmes for ongoing, personalised learning that truly moves thing forward and improves outcomes for pupils; they know a new framework will have a nudge-factor, and they have decided to use it for good. My own opinion: I think it has promise.
My hesitation comes from the good intentions associated with something that has promise, and over 20 years watching schools leap on Ofsted terminology without engaging with why they’ve no-doubt spent weeks wrestling over semantics. To butcher the Bananarama classic, it’s not what we call it, it’s the way that we do it. If schools keep doing what they’re doing and just ‘find and replace’ in all their documents, the benefits of engaging with the difference between learning and development will have little impact. We need to be able to have a proper conversation with our wider teams about what the nudge is aiming for.
My trust role title for the last eight-ish years has been Learning and Development Lead. I chose that very specifically to cover the nuances of what my role was going to cover around ‘research and development’ and ‘teaching and learning’, and the broad coverage my role has. For my role, professional development goes beyond the scope of the EEF’s ‘PD’ and isn’t just about what happens in the classroom – our central offer is about the site team, admin, induction, introduction of new systems, first aid. PD is a good catch-all abbreviation for what I do, but it also recognises what I’m trying to do.
We are developing people, not learning them, ‘develop’ suggests they aren’t novices – they’re building on something. Development takes time; we develop deep knowledge, develop understanding. Develop covers the things that aren’t an ongoing programme of learning. That’s not to say we don’t revisit things or engage with contextual reflection or collaborate, it’s just that I’m recognising the difference.
I’ve used Weston and Clay’s (2018) Depth of Practice Framework for a lot over the years, but always to highlight the importance of recognising the individual in our opportunities for development. Not everyone or everything needs adaptive expertise, and I want to make sure we capture everything we do.
Back to Sims et al. They establish early on that PD has three levels: programmes (specific sets of activities and materials), forms (type or category of PD), and mechanisms (the design of PD). The programmes we use are an important part of the PD-sphere and under the new Ofsted framework I can see they’ll become even more important to demonstrate. There are going to be a lot of companies flogging their excellent, and probably not-so-excellent, cover-all packages and desperate to reach that ‘strong standard’, schools will be eager to get things in place. My concern is that we forget the mechanisms. Now more than ever, it’s crucial that leaders and practitioners are aware of why they’re learning in the way they are, why the programmes are structured in the way they are, why Ofsted are using their framework to nudge change in the way they are.
We can’t ignore ‘development’ in the literature, and I know that not everyone has read those debates, but they happen and sometimes semantics are important. When it comes down to it though, it’s making sure that what we do leads to actual improvement and change. We know a lot about what works and what’s important so it’s crucial that we take this opportunity to reach for the potential for change that is there and not just settle for a name-change because it looks like progress and aligns terminology across documents.
For me, I want to develop what we’re already doing through purposeful learning. Learning and development.
Sims, S., Fletcher-Wood, H., O’Mara-Eves, A., Cottingham, S., Stansfield, C., Van Herwegen, J., Anders, J. (2021). What are the Characteristics of Teacher Professional Development that Increase Pupil Achievement? A systematic review and meta-analysis. London: Education Endowment Foundation. The report is available from: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/evidence-reviews/teacherprofessional-development-characteristics
We talk of high expectations for all pupils, yet too often, disadvantaged students are subtly, and sometimes overtly, underestimated. This tension isn’t just an educational concern; it mirrors a deeper pattern where opportunity, potential and worth are judged through the lens of circumstance rather than capability.
There was an article in TES a few weeks ago reporting an increase in the number of pupils in SEND settings sitting GCSEs and achieving level 2 qualifications. The suggestion was this is evidence that a significant number of pupils in special schools would be able to achieve just as well in a mainstream setting, if only their needs were met. My response is this: Our overriding goal is to support pupil independence. Ultimately, we want them to be able to access ‘mainstream’, but that might mean different things. It might be a return to a mainstream school, it might be integration into post-16 education or training (for which they may need those GCSEs), or it might be that they can make their dinner independently and put on a load of washing. Achieving this doesn’t necessarily mean that mainstream school would be what is best for the child.
Whether it’s physical access, cognitive access, or opportunity of access, there’s a lot we do in special schools to support the access to which pupils are entitled. Even within the sector it is easy to underestimate what pupils can do, and with that can come a lowering of expectations. If all my boys got a grade 1 nobody would bat an eyelid, and I fight against this every year. I’ve been asked if there are alternatives to GCSE that we can offer at KS4, and there are. There are some wonderful courses with different levels of accreditation, and if they are appropriate to our offer, of course I’ll suggest them, but I will always fight to offer my boys GCSE art. For some it’ll be the only actual GCSE they get, and for many it will be the highest grade they get – on a par with mainstream pupils. This isn’t because they don’t need a special school; the course and structure of our specialist setting allows me to deliver it in a way that best supports them and allows them to thrive despite expectations, but this all represents a bigger picture.
It’s not just due to SEND that pupils are underestimated – they live on inner city estates, they’re looked-after, they’re from single-parent families, they use foodbanks, they come from a different country, and many other labels that put them in the ‘other’ category. And it’s not just them, it’s their families, those around them and, let’s face it, our wider community.
Art finds itself in an interesting position in education, and society; it’s thought of as a dumbed-down, non-academic curriculum offer for those who can’t do ‘proper’ subjects, and yet there’s a backdrop of exclusivity or indulgence in becoming educated in art. The thinly veiled hierarchy of art, where grand masters hold cultural clout and work that appears to be a few colourful shapes thrown together, and echoes with cries of ‘my 4yo could do that’, is deemed accessible to all. At the core of this is the soft bigotry of low expectations and underestimations.
How do we make art more acceptably accessible? Take arts media; there’s concern amongst the arts community that commissioners for major broadcasters are increasingly leaning away from scholarship and towards a genre of celebrity travelogue – free holidays for z-list celebs and comedians. As one poster on Bluesky recently put it, the “best you could hope for now is Vernon Kaye Goes To The Tate”. My question is; is there anything wrong with this? Now, I’m aware this was a quick social media quip, but sticking with it, I don’t know anything about Vernon Kaye’s knowledge of the art world. He may be a connoisseur, he may have a penchant for feminist art theory, or psychoanalysis. Just because he’s a former model or his dad drove trucks for a living, does it mean he’s the wrong person to help a wider audience discover Turner? The issue, I would argue, is one of underestimating the audience. The likelihood of Vernon Kaye being commissioned to present a show from the same perspective as, I don’t know, Stephen Fry even, is unlikely, but that comes down to the undercurrent of who is expected to watch the programme.
As a brief aside, the recent series with Rob Rinder and Rylan was an interesting twist on this. Equally criticised as another ‘celeb travelogue’ arts show, at the core of this was two men finding themselves and each other through the sharing of what they hold dear. For Rinder that was showing Rylan a world of art and offering that opportunity for someone who isn’t supposed to like stuff like that the chance to fall in love with it. The whole show leant into the low expectations and underestimations we have engrained.
The answer, I feel, is that our whole offer is diluted. There’s a place for pitching more ‘entertaining’ ideas, but when that’s all there is it never goes beyond a surface education or viewing figures and popular themes, ignoring the appetite for something deeper. I spent over fifteen years running a pub quiz, and I’ll tell you what, nothing presents a clearer view of how we shouldn’t underestimate different backgrounds than a weekly battle of knowledge between roofers, posties, teachers and executives. The joy of teaching something new is pupils don’t know what’s too ‘highbrow’ for them. A van Dyck can be a ‘nice picture of a man in a fancy coat’ or a radical shift in portraiture; a Whiteread can be a block of concrete or physical realisation of memory – it’s how we present it.
Of course, I want my boys to get as high a grade qualification that they can. I want to help secure their next stage of education, but I want more than that. I want to show them, and those around them, that I don’t underestimate what they can achieve; that art and the arts are theirs as much as anybody’s. To open up the world through a tv programme or podcast, a curriculum or educational programme, a free webinar or a full-blown postgraduate qualification is entirely in our gift; SEND or not. They are all the audience.
Much of what I do in my professional development role really comes down to influencing how people think about things with the aim of them changing their practice. A lot of that is about understanding how people think about things, and thinking about how people think about things is something I’ve thought about a lot. With my growing interest in the wider world of art, I’ve been turning my mind to where these ideas cross over.
PD and art both have the potential to change minds, but why can it go wrong and how far is it possible to influence people? If we’re careful and plan what it is we want to achieve, we are more likely to do what we’ve set out to, but context is important. When I’m talking to people about PD, I’ll often use Argyris’s (1985) ‘Ladder of Inference’ to demonstrate the process people go through to enact change.
We are all selective of the information we take on board, even from the same ‘pool’ as others. We make assumptions, alter our beliefs, and ultimately this influences the next piece of information we select. How much can we control this individual process? Perhaps the question can be ‘how much can we know about this individual process?’
In ‘Fierce Conversations’ (2002), Susan Scott introduces the metaphor of a beach ball for understanding different perspectives. Essentially it goes like this: when we look at a beach ball from one viewpoint, it can seem to be one colour, but if we change our perspective, so that colour can change too. We all inhabit our own stripe on the beach ball. For me, on the green stripe, everything is green; my office, my pupils, my house. For someone I work with, they might be on the orange stripe, where everything is definitely orange. Both of our realities are true. When we are trying to change minds, we need to recognise that not everyone is coming from the same place of experience, assumptions and beliefs.
It was only a matter of time before I managed to bring the trusty Clarke and Hollingsworth (2002) interconnected model of professional growth into an art history context, and it’s happening now. Essentially, what the model shows is the change process of professional development through the acts of reflection and enactment against four domains, and importantly, that the route through this process will be different for different people.
We have the external domain (external information or stimulus), personal domain (knowledge, beliefs, attitudes), domain of practice (professional experimentation), and domain of consequence (visible outcomes). Our reflection on each domain influences what we enact and the different paths we take to learning. In professional development this could be how our existing beliefs are changed by experimenting with a new technique we’re taught and the resulting impact on student outcomes. In art, this could be how we interpret the work of an artist once we’re given historical context of their life, and presented with examples of their work. Some things might be easier to influence and change: correction through new information – learning styles don’t exist, Boudica not Boadicea, a reattribution – others will take time. Where this process falls down, is when we forget that some people will need more concrete evidence to reflect on, some people will need more experimentation, some people will need more information; if we try to force their pathway, we might not be giving them what they need to enact change. We all interpret through our own lens, something that is particularly pertinent to the way we see art.
I’ve just completed the OpenLearn course on Caravaggio which had a focus on the different ways of approaching forms of art history writing (through artists’ lives and contemporaneous sources, right though to psychoanalysis). One of the things that got me connecting this with models of learning was a discussion about how we change the meaning of art simply by discussing it, and this particular quote from Gombrich (1966):
“It is a frightening thought, and yet, I believe, true, that anything we say or write about a painting may change it in some subtle way. It reorganizes our perceptions, and no one can unscramble them or wipe away the accents which description and interpretation superimpose upon the picture.”
If I’ve got this right, we change our attitudes, beliefs, prescribed meaning, which in turn changes our attitudes, beliefs, prescribed meaning. We can only interpret art through our own lens – even if that’s our choice of lens. Another thing Susan Scott presents in ‘Fierce Conversations’ is “All conversations we have are with ourselves, and sometimes they involve others.” We can’t control how people will see art – at best we can offer tools and a wider pool of data to select from.
Coincidentally, yesterday, Bendor Grosvenor wrote about how art is presented in galleries, and the fine line between presenting the context of art in a way that is honest, and in a way that perhaps patronises the audience. I won’t repeat it, you can read his points yourselves, but my take is that forcing a narrative or interpretation for people risks missing what their own pathway of inference/growth is.
In both art and PD there will be things that are right, or at least our best bet of what’s right with our current knowledge and understanding. We need to use that to ground adaptation and interpretation. I recently wrote about shared meaning and ‘rules’ of reading art, but these, whether pomegranates or emojis are of their time and we can’t ignore that new meaning might come along. Does this mean new people will read things differently? Perhaps. That’s, to an extent, how new ideas emerge and get tested, but it doesn’t mean we ignore original context, in fact it might make it more important.
So how do we ever get a shared consensus? The thing about the Clarke and Hollingsworth model is that it’s possible to get everyone to the same point but the route they take will be different. What it demonstrates is the need to acknowledge this and facilitate the process. The same could be said for art. Rather than forcing the route someone takes, we need to make sure a rich body of knowledge and opportunities to engage with ideas are available, support is accessible, and offer a space for people to work with ideas that lead to change.
What began as a casual curiosity about the weaving of movements and meanings has exploded into a deep fascination with the investigation, interpretation and synthesis of ideas. I wrote about my growing enthusiasm for art history at the beginning of the year, but I’m not sure I could’ve predicted what it would turn into.
Since the new year, I have been buried in a series of books – ranging from general introductions to art history, to critical reflections on methodologies, I’ve powered my way through eight Open Learn courses, attended multiple online lectures and dragged Howard round numerous galleries as I try to peer with a bit more knowledge at art. I’ve learnt about the Enlightenment, Napoleonic paintings, Brighton Pavilion, Dutch landscapes, using mathematical algorithms to help conservators, connoisseurship, semiotics, Marxism, feminism and so much more; it’s massive.
I’ve also reflected a lot on my own learning process. The science of learning and education has been a constant in my adult learning life for well over a decade, so much so that what was a hobby of edu-nerdery has become my career (maybe this is why I’ve shifted away from this in my spare time). But it’s offered me an insight into my learning process in a way I’ve not had before. I’m doing this without an expert teacher (aside from the expert authors/academics, obvs) and relying on prior knowledge massively. I’ve done quite a bit of stopping to search for definitions or easier explanations, but there’s been a lot of powering through. My understanding of curriculum development means I’ve recognised where there are threshold concepts that are hard to grasp initially, but I need to know about in order to reflect back and make sense. I think this has helped me not to give up, but it’s also made me realise I do need to come back to it. I’ve clocked where ideas are repeated across different sources, and I’ve knowledge-dumped all over anyone who will listen.
I have several hesitations though. It’s a long time since I’ve engaged with historical research from an academic perspective and it’s less comfortable than education research (but the papers do come with more pictures). My reliance on prior knowledge has made me acutely aware of the Dunning-Kruger effect – the more I learn, the more I know I don’t know and the less willing I am to start formulating responses. When do I do this? There’s no one to check my understanding or misconceptions! I haven’t got to the bit where I’m forming opinions yet and I’m not synthesising ideas (I really love a bit of synthesis and I’m eager to be able to do this), but I need knowledge to synthesise.
It’s hard and I keep giving up but then I pick it up again five minutes later because I can’t stop. And I don’t know what I’m doing with all this half-understood information (apart from using it to try and understand the next bit of information). None of it is particularly practical and none of it is really able to be implemented in any way, but I keep writing little notes to come back to and I think I might write more as I develop my thoughts across different themes that are emerging…
I’m appreciating SEND art and artistic pedagogies more – not sure why; perhaps it’s about pure process – giving them knowledge and watching their reaction. I’m interested in iconography and methods around that – it’s a bit like learning to do the Minute Cryptic with all the ‘could be a signifier, might not be’. I’m curious about how artists themselves change their practice in response to changes in art history practices. I’m interested in exploring where my own taste and preferences (and choices for studies in school) come from. I’m interested in how far art history can be reimagined without a deep knowledge of the traditional scholarship that is being reimagined (thus perpetuating the study of traditional art history). Got a few more posts to come I reckon.
Essentially, I’m enjoying myself, even if it has taken over every spare moment I have. It’s become my escape from work and the world, and goodness knows we need that at the moment. I’ve got a book of essays to read next and a new source of online lectures, and I’m excited to see where it all leads.
Impression That I Get 