Recognising performance and accountability pressures on schools, Inspiring School Change shows how a commitment to the arts in education can meet core school agendas of pupil and parent engagement, attainment, improved teaching and inclusion. Schools are under pressure to develop their students’ creativity and to improve their cultural education. This book fills a gap by marshalling the arguments and evidence for a form of education in, through and with the arts that moves beyond individual projects to become central to teaching, learning and school reform.

When the arts are taken seriously, schools become different - and better - places. Using research evidence to promote greater awareness of the capacity of the arts to promote educational change, this text captures four key themes that run through all of the chapters:

• Inspiration - sharing experiences and the way they happened, documenting inspiring pedagogy by understanding the reason it was done, the factors and the people involved in making it work.

• School change - the need for schools to better prepare young people for the lives they will live in the twenty-first century; to engage young people more effectively and so educate them better, and the recognition that in an unequal society schools can contribute to making things fairer.

• Creative arts - demonstrates, through international research, how the arts can facilitate whole school learning, meet core agendas, such as attainment, inclusion and promote lifelong learning.

• Transforming education - marshals the arguments and evidence for a form of education in, through and with the arts that moves beyond individual projects to become central to teaching, learning and school reform.

Tackling the hot topics of parent and pupil engagement, standards and accountability in a fresh way, Inspiring School Change offers those engaged in the research and practice of improving teaching and learning with insight into the educational value and possibilities of arts-based teaching and an arts-rich curriculum