Artist in Residence 2010 – 2014 – Outcomes

15 Oct 2015

The Artist in Residence program (AIR) 2009-14 was a partnership program between the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, the Department of Education and the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts. The program was originally proposed by the Australia Council to ‘improve young people’s access to quality arts education programs’ to benefit students, teachers, whole-school and broader communities. From 2010-2014 the program:

•  invested $1,096,565 over five years in 60 applicants delivering in 76 different schools
•  leveraged funding of $709,458 – comprising $276,025 in additional cash contributions (1) and $433,443 of in-kind support (2) – which constitutes a return on government investment of sixty five cents to every dollar invested (3)
•  employed approximately 224 artists with 49 arts organisations and 76 learning institutions (including 2 kindergarten/child care centres, 43 primary schools, 14 secondary schools, 7 combined schools and 10 special schools)
•  actively involved approximately 10,831 students
•  engaged individual artists, small and large arts and cultural organisations, schools and other learning institutions and employed a diversity of forms of artistic practice including classical and contemporary music, circus, theatre, design, visual arts, craft and writing.

In 2015, the last year of the partnership agreement, a further 78 applications were received with 28 applications shortlisted and 16 projects approved for a total investment of $285,000. The investment is spread across eight metropolitan and eight regional areas and includes two kindergartens, three primary, seven secondary, one P–10, two special schools and one university and one kindergarten.
 
What kind of schools were successful?
 One of the key goals of the program was to provide access to quality arts education in Queensland schools. Schools experiencing educational disadvantage – assessed using the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA) value rating system(4) – were well represented in successful applications. Thirty of the 60 successful projects involved schools that scored below the ICSEA median score of 1000. Success rates were also good for schools rated below 1000, with applications from schools in the most disadvantaged category (<700) achieving a success rate of 58% compared to an overall success rate of 16%.
 
Where in Queensland did the funding go?
 Applications were categorised as metropolitan, provincial, remote or very remote.(5) Applicants located in metropolitan and provincial locations applied in greater numbers and were in number, more successful than remote or very remote counterparts. However, very remote applicants had a higher success rate than remote, provincial or metropolitan applicants. Applicants from remote areas had the lowest applicant rate and the lowest success rate.
 

*Not specified also includes ineligible and withdrawn applications for which location data wasn’t available. Source: Arts Queensland applications funding data. My School website for categorisation by region.
 
Benefits
 Program participants were overwhelmingly positive about the program for themselves, their collaborators, for students and broader school communities. There was a high level agreement that the program resulted in increased skills, knowledge and confidence of artists, educators and students and a greater understanding of the benefits of the arts and arts-led learning.
 
Participants also observed changes in attitudes and behaviours in themselves and their organisations evidenced through (for schools) new employment opportunities for artists and an increase in number and quality of arts activities in and outside of learning environments. Long-term (two years after), some artist indicated that working in education settings has had a positive, developmental effect on their practice. Some educator respondents said that their local community perceives their organisation as more arts-supportive than it used to be.
 
Seven case studies have been commissioned and written by Arts Queensland and program participants and published on Arts Queensland’s blog.

•  The Play Museum, Kurilpa Community Childcare Centre, West End 2014
•  Defy Gravity, Red Hill Special School, Brisbane 2014
•  What does it take to be a citizen who thrives in the 21st Century? Pimpama State Secondary College, Gold Coast 2014
•  Memories are Made of This, Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital 2014
•  Connections, Beaudesert State School 2015
•  11 and Beyond, Tambourine Mountain State School
•  The Bodja Chair Project, Toowoomba State High School

Arts Queensland also supported other special activities such as the Second International Teaching Artists Conference (ITAC2) as part the Queensland Performing Arts Centre’s Out of the Box Festival 2014 profiled by Eric Booth on Arts Queensland’s blog
 
Image credit: Students in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as part of The Dream Project, Milton State School with Grin and Tonic Theatre Troupe 2011. Image supplied courtesy of Grin and Tonic Theatre.  Photograph: Travis Dowling
 
Notes:
 1. Cash contributions include schools’ own contributions, earned income, other grant income, sponsorships, fundraising and donations.
 2. In-kind support includes contributions from schools, artists and other stakeholders
 3. All forms of income are included in this calculation, including in-kind support.
 4. The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA) value rating system was used to determine existing educational advantage. ICSEA looks at four demographic factors – parent occupations, parents’ education, geographical location and proportion of Indigenous students. Under the ICSEA system, a value on the index corresponds to the average level of educational advantage of the school’s student population relative to those of other schools. This means that the lower the score, the greater the level of educational disadvantage.
 5. Applications were categorised using data from the My School website which are determined according to the Schools Geographic Location Classification Scheme of the Education Council.
 6. Australian Bureau of Statistics 2015, Schools, Australia, 2014, catalogue no. 4221.0, ABS, Canberra