Manifesto calls on children's right to arts

Campaigners held a conference in London last week to unveil themanifesto, which aims to raise the profile of children's arts.Government, political parties, schools, arts organisations, localauthorities and the media are being asked to develop special policiestowards this end.

Conference speakers included the children's laureate Michael Rosen,children's author Michelle Magorian and director of Liberty ShamiChakrabarti.

Children's minister Beverley Hughes, via a video, said, 'There areconcerns that sometimes culture doesn't play a big enough part in schoollife, which is why we have asked Sir Jim Rose to review the primarycurriculum to give teachers more freedom to be creative and embed thearts into all lessons.'

ACA chair and children's playwright David Wood told Nursery World,'According to the Human Rights Act, every child has the right toparticipate freely in culture and the arts. I don't think we do givethem that. No political parties pay attention to this aspect ofchildren's development. The DCSF should take note of it, so childrendon't focus just on tests. Creativity and play and arts in generalshould be at the heart of the curriculum.'