UWE Bristol academic to help shape new national Art and Design curriculum for England

A UWE Bristol academic has been appointed by the Department for Education to draft a new national curriculum for Art and Design, setting out how children and young people across England learn the subject in the years ahead.

Dr Will Grant, Associate Director for Postgraduate Studies in the School of Arts, will work on the development of the new curriculum following the publication of the government-commissioned Curriculum and Assessment Review in 2025. The new curriculum will apply to pupils aged 5 to 14 and is due to be introduced from 2028 - the first major overhaul in 15 years.

Working alongside AccessArt and in collaboration with the National Society for Education in Art and Design, the two subject associations for the discipline, Dr Grant is already in the early stages of curriculum development.

He said: “After years teaching in secondary school art classrooms, and an academic career committed to both the education of art teachers and creative curriculum development, this represents a generational opportunity to make a significant impact on policy and practice.

“Our job is to skilfully synthesise the recommendations of the Francis Report, and the Government’s response, to offer a significantly upgraded national curriculum fit for purpose for the next decade.

“What happens in art classrooms across the country matters; this is the crucible for a pipeline of talent critical to our valuable creative industries, and where all learners build opinions and cultural interests that last a lifetime. Given my work with our postgraduates in the School of Arts, I am inevitably considering how those students joining our community in the 2030s might best be prepared.

“The national curriculum sets the minimum entitlement for all learners, and we will be working to ensure that the diversity of artists, artforms, and ideas encountered by learners is broadened, providing more specific content to support their progress.”

UWE Bristol has an excellent reputation in both the arts and education, and this invitation to draft policy with direct relevance to both disciplines is testament to a growing community of practitioners and researchers in this interdisciplinary field. The university’s high-quality teacher education programmes and strong partnerships with regional schools will inform Dr Grant’s approach to this project.