Institutional Context
Summary
The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) was co-founded in 1996 by Sir Paul McCartney and Mark Featherstone-Witty to provide learning that replicated the actuality of working in the creative and the performing arts. Our purpose for our graduates is a lifetime of sustained work.
As a leading creative learning centre of excellence, we established The LIPA Learning Group, to provide creative learning education from primary school level through to higher education, comprising, LIPA 4-19, LIPA Primary School, and LIPA High School which adopt the approach and focus on the performing and creative arts to deliver the National Curriculum and LIPA Sixth Form College and LIPA Higher Education Institute, who offer specialist performing and creative arts training and education.
Institutional context
We were designated as a Higher Education Institution in 2006. As a small specialist higher education institution, LIPA is renowned as a leading centre of excellence for vocational training in the performance disciplines of Acting, Applied Theatre and Community Drama, Dance and Music and in the disciplines for those who make performance possible, in Filmmaking, Sound Technology, Management for the Creative Industries, and Design and Technology in Theatre Production.
As a teaching focussed institution and a world leading specialist provider, the high cost, practice intensive, industry focussed learning environment is a necessity for maintaining professional standards and quality. This is reliant upon the retention of relatively small cohorts and the provision of experienced professional standard tuition, facilities, and industry compatible specialist equipment.
The founding objects of our institute acknowledge disadvantage and enshrine the enabling potential of the performing arts. Part of the learning dynamic and creative spirit are the diverse forces at work in the essential collaborative nature of the work undertaken by students. With an international student population of 21% and a wide range of home backgrounds (46% of students come from low participation areas), there is a rich culture of exchange and peer learning.
Key objectives for our Strategic Plan 2023-26 are.
To be recognised as a world leading centre of excellence for creative learning and vocational training within the performing arts and creative industries
Create and develop a culture and environment for equality and inclusion at all levels throughout the institution
Achieve and maintain financial, environmental, systemic, and technological sustainability
As a small specialist provider, we will empower and enhance student, staff, and alumni of the LIPA Learning Group to intersect with our local community and the creative sectors
Employability will be embedded into the curriculum and co-curricular activities to develop students for future employment opportunities and career progression
Develop a learning environment for inspiring creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship
Within a practice intensive conservatoire training environment, the cornerstone of our approaches to teaching is through project and practice-based learning underpinned by creativity and collaboration. We have developed a curriculum that is designed to equip performers and those who make performance possible with the knowledge and skills to be self-sustaining professionals. We emphasise creativity, collaboration, enterprise, and autonomy. We want to attract and retain people from non-traditional backgrounds and emphasise equality of opportunity.
Our profile as a sector leading institution contributes to our success in addressing regional inequalities and recruitment disparities by providing alternative provision and counterbalancing the dominance and draw of competitor institutions in the southeast of England. Our profile and reputation enable us to attract more international undergraduate students than any other single specialist performing arts institution in England, enrolling students from 48 countries outside of the United Kingdom.
We prepare and challenge our students and graduates to not only make a living within the creative industries but to also make a difference as leaders in their disciplines, as communicators, entertainers, entrepreneurs, and innovators shaping the future of the creative industries and the experience economy for the benefit of society and culture.
For further information, please send queries to kef@lipa.ac.uk
Local Growth and Regeneration
Summary of approach
LIPA’s local growth and regeneration activity is largely focussed upon social inclusion within the creative and performing arts and occurs principally in the Liverpool City Region. The links between LIPA’s strategic aims, detailed in its five-year Strategic Plan 2017-22, and the LCR’s goals, as articulated in its Plan for Prosperity (2021) and its Cultural Compact (2021) are identified.
Attention is paid to the important social inclusion work undertaken through the LIPA Primary & High School in a context in which the LCR’s Plan for Prosperity places considerable emphasis upon raising educational achievement across the region.
The submission also highlights the wide-ranging social inclusion work undertaken across LIPA, mainly with civil society partners through its applied theatre and community drama work.
Aspect 1: Strategy
LIPA’s targeted knowledge exchange activity, in which it works together with businesses, the public sector and the wider civil society to achieve a strategic goal with a primary focus on local growth or regeneration, is focussed principally upon the Liverpool City Region and comprises mainly priorities relating to enterprise and social inclusion driven through involvement in the creative industries. The main focus upon the Liverpool City Region aligns with the principles of LIPA’s founders, notably Sir Paul McCartney, and Mark Featherstone-Witty that the institute should serve the needs of its local and regional community, whilst also being international in outlook.
LIPA’s strategic plan for 2017-22 set out priorities including:
Putting in place coherent and consistent cross-institute provision for student business/enterprise competencies
Maintaining and strengthening engagement with industry
Extending entrepreneurial capacity
Participating in appropriate local and regional strategies, including maintaining contact with Liverpool Vision (and its successors) and the Mayor’s Office.
These institutionally orientated local growth and regeneration strategic priorities, linked to LIPA’s involvement in the creative and performing arts sector dovetail with a range of aims and priorities included in the Liverpool City Region’s Plan for Prosperity (2021).
This region-wide plan states that the region has the highest density of arts, entertainment, and recreation jobs outside London (p.18). The importance of the creative industries to the region is emphasised in the Plan where it declares that ‘Investment in the cultural infrastructure and into the visitor economy underpin wider regeneration and placemaking; can support public expenditure savings; attract and retain talent; and drive wider productivity growth in the economy.’ (p. 19) LIPA’s creative industries-oriented provision and its direct engagement with sector-related organisations and businesses clearly helps to ensure a continuing flow of talent into this important part of the local and regional economy.
The Plan underpins LIPA’s own strategic aims where it states, ‘the need to ensure the growth of our creative and digital industries, both in the city centre and across the City Region, recognises that these industries can be catalysts for wider change.’ (p. 71)
LIPA’s recent work, drawing upon its strengths in the performing and creative arts to sponsor a primary school high school and sixth form college in the neighbourhood, is a means by which the organisation is seeking to contribute to addressing major economic impediments within the region. For instance, in 2020, 6.1% of 16–17-year-olds in the Liverpool City Region were considered Not in Education or Employment or Training (NEET) compared to 5.5% nationally. (p. 58). As the Liverpool City Regional Cultural Partnership’s Cultural Compact Strategic Action Plan for 2021-26 notes: ‘the city region needs to take immediate action to retain and attract talent and put in place measures to support the development of higher-level skills to ensure the sector has creative technical and business skills to support its agile development … Inequality of access to opportunities in culture, in many cases, starts in schools.’ (p. 17) LIPA’s work aims to address these concerns directly, with LIPA’s higher education staff delivering performing arts related content within the schools.
Within the higher education context, LIPA has been engaging directly, as detailed below with a range of stakeholders to ensure that one of the key HE-related goals set out in the Liverpool City Region’s Plan is being achieved. The Plan states that: ‘we will promote undergraduate placements, knowledge transfer partnerships and internships in businesses; and influence provision within the higher education base to ensure it is relevant to local needs ... Liverpool’s universities will also play an important role in developing entrepreneurial capacity and capability including spin out businesses.’ (p. 63).
Within LIPA itself, a professional development programme supports staff in maintaining currency and critical capital in the performing and creative arts. New practices in particular are essential in retaining industrial relevance. Ongoing engagement with industry through practice and project-based learning and our PSRB accreditation also ensure an enriched student experience. Staff record their professional practice work as part of the appraisal process. The research and scholarship paradigm is one of practice as research. Many of our staff are engaged in professional practice aligned to the creative and performing arts economies and there is continual ongoing cross-institutional liaison with the creative and performing arts economies through individual contacts, visiting professionals and our Companions and Patrons, all of whom are internationally renowned in their particular fields within the cultural and performing arts and who contribute regularly to initiatives at LIPA involving students, staff and the wider public.
Aspect 2: Activity
LIPA’s knowledge transfer activity includes the operation of a number of longstanding sponsorship and internship schemes which have been both to the mutual benefit of LIPA, its students and the businesses involved. These include arrangements with companies and organisations such as Orange amplifiers, Sennheiser, Black Magic Design, SSE Hire and Wigwam Hire, providing sponsorship, work experience and internship opportunities.
LIPA Learning’s engagement in social inclusion, a key aspect of local growth and regeneration activity, extends across all aspects of the organisation’s unique education provision from the LIPA Primary & High School to its sixth form and higher education operations.
The social inclusion work undertaken at LIPA within a higher education context takes a wide variety of forms, much of which is linked to the institution’s applied theatre and community drama work, which involves students at undergraduate level in projects operating across the Liverpool City Region (LCR), and with postgraduate students undertaking such work often beyond the boundaries of the LCR.
On the BA (Hons) Applied Theatre and Community Drama programme students learn the skills of facilitation and directing by working on real world projects in community and education environments. As the course, and the learner's expertise, progresses students take increasing responsibility for the leadership and delivery of this work, with each individual ultimately running their own twelve-week project in the field as the summation of their studies. These are stand-alone projects developed between LIPA and relevant partner organisations.
The resulting environment, in which students encounter appropriate challenges in real world contexts, allows for skill development knowledge creation and contextual understanding to be constantly folded back into the student's learning and the programme itself.
Whilst these projects are designed to facilitate the student's learning, they are also legitimate social interventions in themselves, creating opportunities for community groups and schools to engage in authentic processes leading to a variety of educational, developmental, wellbeing and advocacy impacts. The scope and frequency of the projects far outstrips the delivery possible by most professional organisations in this field, allowing for a high level of reflexive knowledge exchange and practice development.
Most projects involve a range of stakeholders, bringing together for instance local authority officers with community groups, young people with elders, refugee, and asylum seekers with resident associations. Factoring in Applied Theatre and Community Drama students and staff into this equation gives rise to a vibrant, dynamic network in which knowledge exchange takes place as a form of co-production and co-intentionality. Insights and development are dynamically triangulated between the academy, society, and statutory bodies, combining the highest levels of both professional training and social impact.
The department also runs a work-based/distance learning MA programme for experienced practitioners working in educational and arts positions all over the UK and internationally. This delivery adds yet another level of impact as the MA students, and by association the organisations they work for, directly benefit from, and contribute to the knowledge creation and practice development of the undergraduate projects, faculty, and community partners.
We work with partners in local authorities, VCS networks and undertake grass roots engagement activities to identify groups to collaborate with.
Applied Theatre Department collaborates with 50-60 community groups and schools each year. Examples of projects are detailed below.
| Project | 2019-20 | 2020-21 | 2021-22 |
|---|---|---|---|
| L4 Roy Castle Foundation Charity Event in Sefton Park | Street Theatre in park plus whole programme ensembles Samba Band, Choir and Gumboot dance (10,000 visitors) | n/a Covid | Street Theatre in park plus whole programme ensembles Samba Band and Choir (10,000 visitors) |
| L5 Community Performance | More than Blanket Baths and Bedpans – A history of the NHS Company of Friends Liverpool Network Group Third Age Group Rainbows Health and Wellbeing Group Mersey Parks Blackburne House |
History of Tam O'Shanter City Farm: A guided walk Spider Creative Recovery Group Silverbacks Men's Mental Health Group Company of Friends Bidston Robert Burns Club Claremount Sports College Phab Group Oldershaw Academy |
Victoria Victorious An Artistic History of New Brighton St Peter & Paul Primary School Mersey Arts Zone Disabled Artists Spider Group New Brighton LGBTQIA+ 13-19 Group Company of Friends New Brighton Primary School Clare Mount Sports College |
| L6 Theatre for Democracy Project | Carrbridge Centre, Woodchurch Upton Village Community Group Organic Community Allotment Group Wirral multicultural Organisation Tomorrows Women Silverbacks The Observatory School |
Community evaluation of the Wirral local authority’s response to Covid 19 Wirral Ways, Age UK Wirral Wirral Covid Response Partnership St John Plessington Catholic College Off The Ground Youth Theatre The Hive Arts Committee Woodchurch High School Heswall University of the Third Age The Icebreakers Wirral Old Peoples Parliament Silverbacks Bee Wirral The Livvy Voyage for Change |
Nightingale Recovery Café, Wellbeing hub YMCA Birkenhead Belvedere Centre Little Beachwood Centre Age UK: Wirral Heart4Refugees Knowledge Exchange Report attached |
| L6 Individual Final Projects | 22 x 12 week community project – details available | 21 x 12 week community project – details available | 23 x 12 week community project – details available |
Key Partners
We also have longstanding relationships with a number of organisations and community groups most notably:
Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council – Six-year theatre for democracy project
Company of Friends – a theatre company for adults with learning disabilities. Its aim, mainly through its productions, is to promote social inclusion for the public benefit by working with people in Merseyside who have learning difficulties, who are socially excluded as a result of their learning difficulties and to relieve the needs of such people and assist them to integrate into society. http://www.companyoffriends.org.uk/Home/AboutUs
The Silverbacks Men's Mental Health Group - this Elemental Project aims to help reduce men’s isolation on the Wirral, in part through creative and performing arts related activities. https://www.beewirral.co.uk/what-we-do/mens-activities
The Spider Project – a creative arts and wellbeing recovery community project https://www.spiderproject.org.uk/
Hearts 4 Refugees - its mission is to break down the barriers that asylum seekers and refugees face, to rebuild lives and improve mental health outcomes through support and empowerment https://www.heart4refugees.org/about-heart-4-refugees
LIPA also regularly engages directly with professional arts organisations on co-created and co-produced activities. Recent examples include work undertaken in 2019 with Gecko, an award-winning physical theatre company which engaged over a six-week period in Spring 2019 in the development of a show with LIPA students, culminating in a production entitled Parts 1 & 2: An Invented Work.
In June 2022, second-year students on LIPA acting and musicianship programmes worked with poet laureate Simon Armitage and his band on an ambitious multi-media production of Gilgamesh, which was staged from 2 to 4 June 2022.
More region-specific engagement leading to the co-creation of outputs involving professional creative workers and LIPA students includes involvement with an annual night-time festival Light Night Liverpool, funded by Liverpool City Council, Arts Council Liverpool and other partners which has led to the production of a number of lighting installations on campus and surrounding areas on public view.
Community growth and regeneration impacts are particularly notable within the long-term Theatre for Democracy projects run annually with Merseyside Local Authorities. Applied Theatre students work with community groups to develop advocacy events in which the participants articulate proposals for physical and/or policy change through performance and participatory processes. The events are attended by elected representatives, council officers, members of the emergency services and voluntary organisations.
The knowledge that emerges from these events, co-produced in the truest sense of the term, has a multitude of impacts. The local concerns and proposals, articulated through performance and discussion, gain added impetus due to the face to face nature of the event that ameliorates the entrenchment that so often characterise resident engagement. As a result, the projects make significant contributions to policy and often result in tangible change. Some examples:
A men's mental health group looking for projects is introduced to a Friends of the Park group whose members are struggling with workload. They make a performance jointly about the benefits of cooperation and the council undertake to coordinate an 'action plan' scheme to bring volunteer groups together to swap expertise (2023)
A Nativity themed performance by recovering addicts highlights the harassment they regularly receive from some young people and discrimination faced when picking up prescriptions from pharmacies. Police officers attending the event swap tips with the residents about de-escalating situations and offer to look out for these issues. The problem with collecting prescription is referred to the local health committee (2022)
Users of a grassroots level refugee support group perform a satirical cabaret highlighting the struggles they face in accessing essential services. Officers from designated support organisations and the local authority take part in the post-show discussion. Following the event, the charity receives a donation of thirty new mobile phones and enter into productive dialogue with support organisation about to increase access. (2022)
Media Poems by young people about street safety led to the reinstatement of streetlights outside a youth centre (2023). Furthermore, when the local MP contributes to a parliamentary debate about the impact of violent crime on young people she draws on the outcomes of a the same student-led community project in a debate in the house of Commons. Greenwood, M. (2023, January 31,1607). Crime and Neighbourhood Policing [Hansard]. (Vol. 727)
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2023-01-31/debates
The significance of these examples lies not within the modest (though impactful) scale of the changes but in the way they are brought about in dynamic co-production between residents, local authority, and the institution.
Aspect 3: Results
The outcomes and opportunities provided through knowledge transfer partnerships involving companies and organisations such as Orange amplifiers, Sennheiser and SSE Hire and Wigwam Hire are communicated via the LIPA website – www.lipa.ac.uk/about-us/partnerships/. The success of such schemes to an extent can be gauged by their longstanding nature: The Sennheiser partnership for instance was first initiated in 1996.
The success of the social inclusion-oriented activity, which is such a key aspect of LIPA’s local growth and regeneration work can be gauged in a number of ways.
LIPA’s engagement with and sponsorship of the LIPA Primary and High School and LIPA Sixth Form College, including the direct involvement of HE academic staff, has been widely recognised. As a result of the school’s work in providing an inclusive education it has become one of only about 100 schools in the UK to have achieved Inclusion Quality Mark (IQM) flagship status. In July 2021, when announcing the award, IQM praised the school’s broad and balanced curriculum which uses the creative and performing arts to enrich its teaching and learning in the early development of language, reading writing and mathematics skills.
The ongoing nature of many of the social inclusion-oriented relationships which characterise the higher education provision, and which is detailed in Aspect 2, is testimony to the value attached to them by LIPA’s individual partners.
A detailed piece of work analysing the impact of LIPA’s social inclusion work, involving its many civil society partners is about to be undertaken. The significant reach of this work, that has been ongoing and growing for over a decade, is now being formally researched, documented, and analysed.
Public & Community Engagement
Summary of approach
LIPA’s P&CE work is a central element of its operation and is firmly embedded within Liverpool City Region (LCR) in which it has close partnerships links with many and varied cultural organisations.
Particular emphasis is placed upon LIPA’s P&CE work with the region’s young people, including the primary and high school and sixth form college sponsored by LIPA, and the Saturday and summer school provision offered to schoolchildren.
Ways in which LIPA supports its students and alumni in engaging with P&CE work are outlined,
Examples of recent projects undertaken through LIPA’s widening participation schemes are highlighted, including the two-year out-of-school performing arts-related programme for Year 10/11 learners in the LCR, which focusses particularly upon children facing barriers to HE progression.
Aspect 1: Strategy
LIPA’s approach to its public and community engagement work is a central aspect of the organisation’s operation and links closely to its origins – to provide the city and surrounding region with its own performing arts higher education institution. LIPA exists to provide exemplary and distinctive vocational performing arts and related education and training within its city and region to a world-class level.
Amongst the organisation’s strategic goals, it aims to maintain and develop both entrepreneurial capacity and also participation in appropriate local, regional, national and international strategies.
LIPA’s P&CE work is firmly embedded within the Liverpool City Region (LCR) in which, as the LCR’s recent Cultural Compact Strategic Action Plan 2021-26 has noted there are 4117 cultural and creative enterprises and 24,015 people employed in the creative sector, of which some 6925 are employed in film, television, music and entertainment (p.9). Within the region, LIPA has close partnerships links with many major cultural organisations. We work with amongst many others; the Unity Theatre, The Soho Theatre, Sennheiser, the Everyman and Playhouse, Liverpool Museums and Galleries, Sentric Music, The Liverpool Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool ONE, and the recently-opened Shakespeare North at Prescot, Knowsley.
We engage fully with the arts and cultural development agenda regionally and our work aligns closely with the LCR City Regional Cultural Partnership’s Cultural Compact, where emphasis is being placed on three aspects – creative communities; creative people; and creative places.
Our approach to P&CE is informed by the institute’s Equality and Diversity Policy Statement which sits above a framework of policies and procedures through which an anti-discriminatory environment is achieved to encourage members of underrepresented groups to apply for jobs or take up our learning programmes and opportunities. Our P&CE takes place within a challenging and inclusive learning environment. We recognise the worth and potential in all engaged in P&CE and the need to work together to challenge disadvantage and create opportunities. As detailed below, LIPA’s P&CE initiatives include working with young people, particularly from socially disadvantaged parts of the Liverpool City Region, asylum seekers, offenders and those with addiction issues.
With regard to the Liverpool City Council’s Plan for 2022-25, LIPA’s work ties closely to several strategic aims, particularly through its important work within the city via the LIPA Learning Group of sponsoring and providing ongoing support to a primary school, a secondary school and Sixth Form College, all bearing the LIPA name, in which all aspects of the performing arts are appropriately foregrounded. Support to the schools includes delivering their music and instrumental classes at primary and secondary level, sharing equipment, such as lighting kit, and instruments, and enabling the schools to make use of the institute’s main theatre and other amenities for a range of performances. Of particular relevance is the work undertaken by LIPA linked to the City Council’s strategic aims with regard to:
High quality education, skills and employment for all;
Children and young people enjoying the best quality of life and reaching their full potential;
Developing a culturally diverse, internationally ambitious and authentic city for all
Developing thriving empowered and compassionate communities for all.
Aspect 2: Support
LIPA has a long record of providing practical support offered to its students and alumni, preparing them for long and diverse working lives beyond their studies, and with a focus on P&CE. To this end, and in line with its strategic aim to maintain and develop entrepreneurial capacity, a series of long-standing bursaries and funding opportunities are available. In order to help students and graduates develop their own projects and entrepreneurial endeavours, there are a number of funds available for shows and business start-ups. Since LIPA began, these funds have contributed over £300,000 to student and graduate enterprise. These have included a variety of businesses from Theatre in Education companies to bands, arts centres and hire companies. Some of LIPA’s funds are also available for social enterprises.
During their time studying at LIPA, and in their first year after graduation, funds are made available to stage their own shows on campus and externally.
When students leave, LIPA continues to support graduates with a range of funds for new and growing businesses. These are designed to help alumni put the business plan they develop during their time at LIPA into practice. Funds are made available at different stages, as alumni’s businesses develop. Graduates from every course have benefited from this support, which is co-ordinated through LIPA Enterprise. The funds available include the following:
Show Fund. This fund is intended to support a one-off show, event or project. All current students and graduates, within one year of leaving are eligible to apply for a grant or loan between £300 to £900.usiness in the UK. Between £500 and £1500 is available as a grant or loan.
First Year Out Fund. For students in their final year and graduates within one year of leaving, this fund helps those who want to start their own business in the UK. Between £500 and £1500 is available as a grant or a loan.
Graduate Business Development Fund. This fund follows on from the First Year Out Fund and is open to those who graduated between one and three years ago. Typically, the fund offers £1000 to support an ongoing UK business which has been started by one of our graduates.
Sponsorship Fund. Established graduate companies are eligible to apply for LIPA’s sponsorship fund if there will be suitable opportunities to promote LIPA’s involvement in their activities. Graduates whose businesses have been running productively for at least three years can apply for this fund which offers £5000 spread over three years or more.
Table 1: Recent disbursement of funds and total number of funded projects
| Funding type | 2019-20 | 2020-21 | 2021-22 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | £ | No. | £ | No. | £ | |
| Show Fund | 2 | 1757 | 4 | 2603 | 3 | 1961 |
| First Year Out Fund (including Edinburgh) | 1 | 900 | 3 | 2454 | 4 | 4600 |
| Graduate Business Development Fund | 2 | 2800 | 1 | 400 | 0 | 0 |
| Sponsorship Fund | 1 | 1000 | 2 | 2500 | 2 | 2500 |
| Totals | 6 | 6457 | 10 | 7957 | 9 | 9061 |
| Total spent, 2019-20 to 2021-22 | £23,475 on 25 projects | |||||
LIPA seeks to provide benefits both to the wider public and to targeted groups of individuals via a strategic focus upon compositional diversity and community engagement with those who might not otherwise experience or participate in the performing arts. In pursuance of this objective LIPA has:
Run a series of public performances through ‘live streaming’ to the public at no cost. The live streaming was a response to the COVID-19 pandemic;
Provided management support and training for new businesses either through LIPA’s own initiative or in combination with others.
Generated new graduates’ business employment.
Used LIPA’s location, infrastructure contact, track-record and reputation to assist a variety of enquirers.
Contributed through technical theatre programmes to the region’s live entertainment industry.
Worked in the community, including delivering cultural activities for young people, asylum seekers, offenders and those with addiction issues.
Provided rehearsal space to the Black Actors Collective and support to the Africa Oye festival.
Developed strategic partnerships for audience and artist development and schools tours and workshops with the Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse Theatre and Shakespeare North Playhouse.
Aspect 3: Activity
Our local impact has been enhanced by sponsoring and running (with a unique governance structure approved by the Department for Education) a primary school (from September 2014), a high school (from September 2021) and a sixth form college (from September 2016). These pioneering innovations allow us to improve constantly our understanding of how young people learn and thrive, particularly through direct engagement with the creative and performing arts. In addition, LIPA runs LIPA 4-19, weekly Saturday performance classes, catering for 350 children, and a regular performance-oriented Summer School for c. 250 schoolchildren.
LIPA’s widening participation activity delivers a range of outreach work across Merseyside and further afield – including workshops, careers fair support, and inbound visits – which supports careers provision in schools and colleges. During the last three years, we have worked with nine Merseyside school partners and ten North-West college partners, with whom we deliver mutually arranged bespoke programmes, as well as offering more limited sessions to a wider group of schools and colleges. This activity often consists of delivering after-school performing arts clubs, supporting classes with in-school projects in our subject areas or providing curriculum sessions on agreed topics. Our workshop sessions help participants to understand more about studying and working within the performing arts as well as supporting skills development.
We run a two-year out-of-school programme for Year 10/11 learners within the LCR from a range of backgrounds where there is evidence of barriers to HE progression. The programme aims to help participants develop practical subject skills and gain a greater understanding of career paths within the creative and performing arts. More information about this programme can be found here. The programme is free for participants and sessions are delivered by LIPA staff, graduates and students sharing their knowledge and experiences. A total of 144 young people participated in some stage of this programme between 2019/20 and 2021/22 (typically we’d expect to recruit between 50-80 participants each year, but the numbers were affected during the pandemic when we couldn’t recruit through schools for a period and the programme moved online).
We aim to provide widening access to live theatre for young people by offering complementary tickets to age-suitable public performances for local (and national) school and college groups. This aims to share awareness of what our students do and demonstrate a range of technical skills for those working in theatre and entertainment. During 2019/20 to 2021/22, only 57 people from school/college groups benefitted in this way owing to the pandemic, though more usually some 200. participants from school groups attend LIPA shows between September and March as part of this offer to schools/colleges. For some of these shows, we have also put on post-show Q&As with cast and crew members for school/college groups to share knowledge, in particular around the processes of creating live performances.
In terms of direct knowledge exchange, WP have previously run a project where acting students showed some of their showreels to young people within a youth group in Toxteth (Youth Base) and talked about their experience of acting training.
The WP team has also supported Management students with training and support around approaching local schools to talk about their experiences of producing and promoting Management-led LIPA shows.
We have delivered a small number of ad-hoc practical workshops and campus tours for local community groups upon request during this period, mainly with small numbers.
During 2020/21, we ran a series of online workshops on our LIPA WP social media platforms to support International Dance Day and Mental Health Awareness week. This included live and pre-recorded workshop sessions for learners, such as dance and yoga sessions.
In July 2022, we hosted and co-delivered a Music day for 20+ youngsters with Awards for Young Musicians, an organisation who work with talented young people from low income families to fulfil their musical potential.
The WP team have run six CPD sessions for Art and Design teachers (combination of online/in-person) between 2019/20 – 2021/22. These free ‘Puppets and Light’ sessions explored puppetry and lighting techniques and provides tips and tricks for teachers on making puppets with limited resources and ideas for how they might utilise them in school projects and performances. These were part of the UKADIA National workshop series for teachers.
Collaborative work with specific organisations within the Liverpool City Region include:
Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse Theatre - We have a collaborative partnership agreement for the development of artistic practice (new writing, performance, community drama, performance technology) and audience development (LIPA Primary, High School and Sixth Form College), workshops, masterclasses, schools’ performances, placements
Shakespeare North Playhouse, Prescot, Knowsley - development of partnership agreement for placement opportunities, Shakespeare Schools Tour within Liverpool, Knowsley borough, and north west region. Workshops for LIPA Primary School, LIPA High School, LIPA Sixth Form College and LIPA HE.
LIPA Live at The Cavern Club - LIPA music, arts management, sound and lighting technology students produce a live music event at The Cavern Club one night each month.
We contribute as a partner to our local Uniconnect programme, Shaping Futures. The programmes we support are informed by consultation with a range of partners including schools/colleges, various city council departments and regional careers services. We have contributed to targeted collaborative resources for Shaping Futures. We have also led on the delivery of subject-specific ‘Focus on Performing’ and ‘Focus on Film and Media’ events to Shaping Futures target learners during this three-year period. These two projects involved workshops at LIPA in the morning followed by some form of engagement with wider industry – such as shows at Everyman Theatre, Empire Theatre and exhibitions at the media arts centre FACT Liverpool – providing access to these spaces for the first time for some participants.
Aspect 4: Enhancing practice
Annual reports are produced to consider the impact and reach of the P&CE activities undertaken. Evaluation takes place as an integrated part of the project learning both by students themselves and also by academics as part of the academic annual monitoring processes.
Much P&CE activity is reported and evaluated through LIPA’s Season Planning Group which meets regularly and evaluates a wide range of activities, giving consideration inter alia to risk assessment and safeguarding issues. Key issues raised within this forum are reported and as appropriate actioned by LIPA’s senior committee, its Operations Committee which itself reports to the Senior Management Committee.
With regard to specific programmes, such as the two-year out-of-school programme, monitoring of longer-term progression outcomes for participants shows that a higher proportion than the national average progress into university and a significant proportion of these eventually progress into creative arts or technical theatre courses at HE level.
Aspect 5: Building on success
Engagement with stakeholders and strategies relating to continuous improvement is an iterative process. Given the individual contacts which are key to the operation of these projects, much of the quality enhancement processes are of an informal nature.
As part of this feedback is obtained from those engaged directly with the projects as well as the partners involved in the co-delivery. For instance, the Unicconnect Shaping Futures evaluation process ensures that partner stakeholders are asked to reflect upon the activities undertaken as part of the programme. Examples include the following response from one teacher on the ‘Focus on Film and Media’ project who noted that their pupils: “all really enjoyed their time at LIPA and gained a fantastic insight into taking creative subjects to a higher level. This has helped us to develop their cultural capital. One girl was just constantly saying how amazing the [FACT] space was and how she had never been anywhere like this. Walking there has allowed them to realise where it is located and how easy it will be for them to return to the venue in their own time … Days like yours offer such an inspiring opportunity to young people which we in schools could never achieve without all the hard work of partners like your team. “
Having reflected upon our current evaluative processes, we are currently exploring ways in which specific P&CE evaluations can be reported separately at institutional level so that further future initiatives can be even more fully informed by previous experience.
Note You are currently viewing the latest version of this narrative statement. This narrative was not present in previous iterations of the KEF (KEF1 and KEF2).