Keeping Your Curriculum Broad and Balanced: Celebrating the Arts and Humanities in Primary Schools
Presented by Helen Hamlyn Centre for Pedagogy (0 to 11 Years)
Join us for an inspiring in-person conference exploring the important place of the arts and humanities in primary schools. Subjects such as art, music, drama, history and geography play a vital role in children’s education, yet many schools find it increasingly challenging to protect time and resources for them alongside the pressures of maths and English.
This conference creates a space to reflect on why these subjects matter and how they enrich children’s learning and wellbeing. From nurturing creativity and curiosity to developing empathy, cultural understanding and critical thinking, the arts and humanities help children make sense of the world around them.
Through classroom examples and research insights, speakers will share practical approaches and real experiences that help sustain a broad and balanced curriculum in practice.
Whether you are a teacher, school leader, researcher or arts practitioner, this conference offers a valuable opportunity to reflect, connect and reimagine what a truly broad and balanced primary curriculum can look like in practice.
Event Schedule
The morning session, from 10am to 1pm, will feature keynote presentations.
In the afternoon, from 2pm until 4pm, delegates will take part in five 45-minute workshops. Each workshop which will be repeated to ensure that all attendees have the opportunity to attend two sessions.
Registered participants will receive an email in due course inviting them to sign up for their preferred workshops.
Keynote Talks
You can view summaries of the keynote talks and workshops by clicking here to visit the UCL Discovery website, followed by the list of speakers and workshop leaders below.
- The Story of Visual Communication: A Graphic History of Graphics – Chris Haughton, Children’s Author, Illustrator, and Designer; Laureate na nÓg – Ireland’s Children’s Literature Laureate
- Beyond the ‘Extra’: Arts and Humanities as Living Curriculum – Tara Page, Artist, Researcher, and Professor of Pedagogy and Praxis at Goldsmiths, University of London
- Poems, Singing, Rhythm and Language: A Neural Approach to Understanding Individual Differences in Children’s Language and Reading – Usha Goswami, Winner of the Yidan Prize for Education Research and Professor of Cognitive Developmental Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge
- The Art of Childhood: Why Creativity Matters More Than Ever – Lauren Child, Children’s Author and Illustrator; Winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal and Former UK Children’s Laureate
- Nurturing Creativity through Work with Materials – Pete Moorhouse, Educational Creative Consultant and Artist
Workshops
- Creating Visual Timelines – Chris Haughton
- The Language and Dialogue of Photography – Pete Moorhouse
- Bringing the Curriculum to Life: Using Drama to Deepen Children’s Learning in History and Geography – Cragside Primary School: Marie Doyle, Teacher, Lisa Hall, Deputy Headteacher, Becky Jackson, Headteacher, Lyndsey Ward, Teacher
- Song-Based Pedagogy for English as an Additional Language and Second-Language Acquisition Across the Primary Curriculum – Zeinab El-Khateeb, Lecturer in Education (Initial Teacher Education), UCL Institute of Education
- Centring Student and Teacher Agency through Cross-Curricular Learning and Co-Curation – Laura Chesover, Lead Producer for School Programmes, British Library