Vision for the arts in your school
At a very early stage of planning, the board of trustees, principal, senior management, and arts staff should agree on a broad vision for the performing arts in the school.
Here are some questions to stimulate your thinking on where the arts are going in your school. You can apply these questions to the arts in general, the 'performing arts' as a whole, or to one of the 'performing' disciplines – dance, drama or music.
What is the vision for the arts in your school?
- Do you expect the school to place a special emphasis on the arts in the future?
- Is there a parent, community, or student expectation for this emphasis?
- How will students' learning in the arts be fostered in the future? How might this be different from what is done now? What outcomes do you see as being important? How does classroom arts learning and co-curricular learning complement one another?
- Are you clear on the different needs of facilities for day-to-day teaching of the arts and facilities for public performances?
- Do you need solid and adaptable facilities that will serve the basic needs of the arts curriculum, provide optimum conditions for student learning in the arts, and perhaps be sufficient for some productions?
How far ahead are you looking?
- Will this facility have to suffice for a decade or more?
- Or do you envisage ongoing development?
- Is it possible to see this as stage one of a more ambitious facility that will grow over time?
- Should you build in scope for adaptation? (If so, do you have the land available?)
- Or would that lead to too many short term compromises?
What about arts curriculum changes?
- Where do you think the arts curriculum is going?
- What are the trends in curriculum change and student learning in the arts? What will arts learners of the future need? Why?
- Will the arts disciplines become more integrated? (For examples, are we tending towards 'sound arts' or 'media arts'?)
- What impact will Māori or Pasifika music have on the arts in your school? How do Māori/Pasifika students learn in the arts? How will the arts curriculum cater for increasing diversity in society in Aotearoa New Zealand?
- Will conventional facilities be sufficient to encourage such diversity?
Planning for diversity
A more flexible facility can serve a number of different approaches to arts teaching and performances. But that might lead to facilities that are not ideal for any one aspect of the arts curriculum (such as no large rehearsal space suitable for an orchestra or no small drama performance space).
Does your school have current strengths and directions in the arts?
You might have excellent current staff with expertise in orchestral or rock music, for example. You might not be able to afford a full-time dance or drama teacher but currently have a teacher teaching other subjects who is also is a genuine dance or drama specialist. Should you maximise and encourage these strengths and build on this success? This may give your school a narrower but vibrant arts programme. But will the proposed facilities be flexible enough to meet changes in the strengths and interests of teachers?
Integrating the arts
The Arts in the New Zealand Curriculum points out the potential, and gives some examples, for integrating the arts disciplines with other curriculum learning areas.
This website focuses on the 'performing' arts (dance, drama and music), but it is important to consider integration during your planning process. For example, do you want to encourage the visual arts and maybe film, writing, and media teachers to work more closely with the performing arts teachers?
Many year 1–8 teachers integrate study of the arts with other curriculum areas, (such as music and dance with social studies). If your school has not addressed this question, now may be the time to do so. Your mix of specialist and general arts facilities can encourage integration (or not).
In year 9–13 schools, the design and placement of arts facilities is an even more critical factor for integration. Many secondary schools have created arts 'faculties' or 'departments' to connect the arts in various ways – such as combining management and staffing, budgets and administration, assessment and moderation, and perhaps use of equipment. Joint use of facilities is becoming more common, although this is often a pragmatic arrangement to provide interim facilities for an emerging subject.
For more discussion about collaborative arts facilities, see the 'Getting together' section.