As the Courtauld announces an exciting masterplan, a new report highlights the lack of art history in secondary schools

We were delighted to hear the news last week that the Courtauld is creating a new world-class campus at Somerset House in London. Now in our fourth year of partnership with the Courtauld, we have a close connection with the college and the Gallery. Our students continue to benefit from the use of their Somerset House facilities and world-class art collection and we have alumni studying in every year of their BA programme. So there are many reasons to be excited about this ambitious development.

Less positive is a report published by the Association for Art History which has found the number of schools has fallen by 34% from 122 to only 80 today across the sector with only 19 state or non fee paying schools. That so few schools are state subsidised creates a lack of diversity in the arts. In an increasingly visual world, Art History shouldn’t be the preserve of the privileged. The report also highlights the geographical imbalance in provision, with some areas of the UK seriously underrepresented. However despite these findings, the number of students sitting A level has increased by 47%, which demonstrates that there is demand, and university enrolment and degree level provision has remained stable.

This is the backdrop to our work and demonstrates why what we do is vital, so thank you to The Art Newspaper and Apollo Magazine for including our achievements in their coverage of this story.

Last year almost 200 young people from 101 state schools around the UK participated in our free Art History programmes. Over 70% of these students identified as from an ethnic minority and 50% had widening participation indicators. Our successful A level and EPQ courses are delivered both in-person and online allowing people across the UK to access art history qualifications and as reported in The Art Newspaper “Over half of our students are based outside London”. We are committed to ensuring that more school-aged students have the opportunity to study art history.

Partnerships like the one we have with the Courtauld make our work possible and excellent.  It is pleasing to hear they continue to be committed to broadening access to art history with new programmes and look forward to our ongoing work together. More information on the Courtauld masterplan can be found here. For the full report on pre-university access to Art History see the Association for Art History.

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