Today we publish our Report Card 2026 providing a crucial snapshot of the arts education landscape, enabling us to see the consequences of previous governments prioritising non-arts subjects through school performance measures.

Our key findings:

It feels like we are building up to some big announcements this autumn/winter as we await consultation on the draft national curriculum for all subjects and GCSE for some subjects; consultation on new technical qualifications; and the Milburn report –

🔻A major new report on education and AI linked to the Human Flourishing Framework
🔻School workforce issues, with one third of schools considering redundancies and restructuring
🔻News from the new National Centre for Arts Education

🔻A website tracks funding and staffing issues across Higher Education
🔻The National Arts and Cultural Education Awards 2026

Read more here: culturallearningalliance.org.uk/latest-news-ea…

Professor Pat Thomson, CLA’s Senior Evidence Associate, examines a study in China which investigates how out-of-school activities develop creativity and curiosity, identifying two findings that are worth consideration for the UK context:
culturallearningalliance.org.uk/research-spotl…

Anna Cutler, CLA Research Associate, examines recent research from Professor Pat Thomson to consider how we might start to turn back the tide on the erosion of the Arts in schools – and identifies the crucial role of school leadership in revitalising Arts education:

🔻School workforce issues, with one third of schools considering redundancies and restructuring
🔻News from the new National Centre for Arts Education
🔻A website tracks funding and staffing issues across Higher Education
🔻The National Arts and Cultural Education Awards 2026

Read more:
culturallearningalliance.org.uk/latest-news-ea…

CLA Research Spotlight: early October 2026

Professor Pat Thomson, CLA’s Senior Evidence Associate, examines a study from the US which investigates how school leaders’ views of Arts education changes once they actually have more of it in their school.

culturallearningalliance.org.uk/research-spotl…

CLA Latest Thinking | Building Partnerships: what 20 years of partnership can teach us about the next 20

Jacqui O’Hanlon, RSC Deputy Executive Director + Director of Creative Learning – considers how we learn from evidence, experimentation + collective learning.

Jacqui asks how we can work together to create systems of opportunity to enable every child to access an Arts-rich education.

Read more: culturallearningalliance.org.uk/building-partn…