Plymouth free arts school ´will avoid hippy-style mould´

[20.07.2012]

A new arts-based free school supported by the Plymouth College of Art will be anything but a "hippy-style" free school, according to its backers.

The Department for Education last week committed to fund the next stage of the Plymouth School of Creative Arts project.

Providing education from 4-16 in Plymouth, the school has received support from 460 parents in the city and also from The Tate Gallery.

Plymouth Art Professor Andrew Brewerton commented: "I welcome the recognition - implicit in the government's support for our School project - that creative education does indeed matter, and that innovation is the key to success in these terms."

He told the Independent that creative thinking will be underpinned by a focus on other core skills, such as entrepreneurship, design and economics.

"Cuisine is teamwork and business and Mathematics, applying laws of Chemistry and Biology and Physics," Professor Brewerton added.

He hopes the school will address the declining focus on creative arts subjects across the education sector.

Posted by Jennifer Smith