AI PROFILE: The Big idea that’s getting creativity into higher education
Creativity and the arts have been notoriously missing from the UK schools curriculum. To help tackle the problem, SACHA CORCORAN opened a creative arts sixth form college in Walthamstow, Big Creative Academy, founded 12 years ago and in 2021 opened in its own building at a cost of £21m. She is its principal. It now has 450 pupils aged 16 to 19 specialising in the creative arts, and is open to more.
What is the Big Creative Academy and how is it funded?
Big Creative Academy (BCA) is a college for 16- to 18-year-olds providing vocational courses equivalent to A Levels. We teach creative subjects only – drama, media, music, art, fashion - so it’s a very lively learning environment for like-minded students. So many industry guests who visit say they would have loved BCA if it had existed in their day because our young people create a network they can take into industry. Courses are all structured around industry with collaborations and briefs, and we’re very grateful for all of the support we receive from our employer partnerships.
It was founded in 2014, and I’ve been here since the start. My background is in further education and we are funded by the Department for Education. Courses are completely free for young people and we’re very proud to have been awarded Ofsted Outstanding status in 2024 without recourse to any other fundraising. Increasingly, however, government funding is not sufficient for the work we do, and we are founding a new charity - Big Creative Education Foundation - to fundraise for the further resources required to support our young people.
What is your own background and how have those experiences shaped your subsequent career choices? How do they inform your own support for disadvantaged young people, women and single parents?
I come from a similar background to many of my students, growing up in poverty and from a single parent family where my choices were limited. I became homeless at the age of 16 and had a baby at 17, so it took a while for me to bounce back and find my purpose in life. My love of teaching came from being a fitness instructor which propelled me into teaching sports at a further education college and that kick started my career in education.
I have always felt credibility and authenticity to be key as a leader so it’s my difficult beginnings that make me passionate for having wellbeing at the heart of education. I ensure that equality of opportunity is embedded in the organisation for women and parents. For young people, I share my story as an opportunity to show that difficult beginnings are not a justification to fail, but the very reason we must succeed. I have walked in their shoes, I get it and provide an education offer that embraces their challenges and turns them into triumphs
Are you a teacher and do you have creative arts experience yourself?
Yes, I’m a former PE teacher and have spent 30+ years in education. Before becoming principal at BCA I was at Islington College for a number of years and I’ve also had a position at the sector skills council for the creative industries writing the first Creative Apprenticeship framework.
I have also raised a creative - my son is a fashion designer - so I have seen first-hand the determination needed to break into the sector. There’s so much imposter syndrome for a working-class kid trying to enter a sector that’s typically middle class. Seeing my son’s journey has taught me a lot about how the sector recruits and has shaped how I support the young creatives at Big Creative Academy.
Where do you draw your pupils from and how do they qualify – through GCSE, audition, art/design portfolio or something else?
Young people seek us out and will travel for a specialist creative college so our learners come from all over London and the surrounding boroughs. We had one student from the Isle of Wight! Students need 5 GCSEs at Grade 4 to study a Level 3 course with us. That’s the minimum, and we do auditions for our performing arts courses and look at portfolios for the visual arts courses. People always assume we’re over-subscribed, but we’re not, and we welcome applications for our courses.
You specialise in the creative arts but do you offer a full curriculum and do your pupils attend full time, and is there a qualification at the end of their time there?
We’re a college for young people aged 16-18 so young people specialise in one subject area. We teach vocational qualifications equivalent to three A Levels so students can progress to university, apprenticeships, employment, or even set up their own business. It’s like any other college, but creative subjects only.
Qualifications are full time, and students have a full timetable of their chosen subject, plus an hour a week for wellbeing and the same for careers. We know it’s difficult getting into the creative industries so we teach students about working as freelancers and finances. We’re setting up young people to succeed, and 70% or our students remain in the creative industries after they finish their course.
Since we’re industry focused with our collaborations, students have real experience to include in their portfolios and projects they can talk about with potential employers. College isn’t just about the qualification.
Why are the creative arts important to this age group and what are the advantages in a wider scope including diversity, social mobility, job opportunities?
We see a lot of young people who feel they haven’t done their best at school, and feel disillusioned with education. Doing what they love at college really brings out the best in them and they achieve fantastically well. Most of our students are from disadvantaged backgrounds, from the global majority, and with that experience have the best stories to tell. They are the young people industry wants for creative storytelling.
We saw the value of the arts in lockdown and how important it is to society. It’s incredibly powerful for people feeling good about themselves. There’s lots of research to say that those in the creative industries have job satisfaction and high levels of personal wellbeing.
Do you feel you’re filling a gap in the education system?
Definitely. There are so many skills gaps in the creative industries and we’re training our young people to fill them. Young people are attracted to our courses because they want to be the next big thing. They understand the creative industries as being a singer, a designer, an artist but they’re not all going to do that. We teach them about all of those backstage and production roles, and I’m almost more proud of a student who establishes a career in marketing, for example, than those who make it big. We have lots of alumni who have gone on to apprenticeships or set up their own business and have created solid careers for themselves.
What should the government be doing to build creative arts into the curriculum - are specialist schools like yours the answer?
If you look at school data for 14-year olds, creative industries are the top choice for future careers. That’s now. We all know about the years of underfunding in the arts in schools but despite that young people still want to get into the creative industries.
The government has a real opportunity to establish the UK as a leading soft power in the creative industries, to prioritise it and harness economic growth and social wellbeing. We saw the importance of the creative arts during lockdown and how much it meant to people. We could have done that on a national scale and fuelled opportunity.
What are the job prospects for young people educated in the creative arts, and how can you improve them?
When I say that the creative industries are the top choice for future careers, it’s not the top choice for post-16 qualification choices. It seems to me there’s something going wrong there. It’s as if young people get cold feet, so I think it’s a communications issue. Young people think they’re not going to get a job, earn any money, and that AI has taken over all the entry level roles. None of this is true.
Young people can get jobs in the creative industries and we’re making careers tangible for them. There’s a lot of goodwill within the sector, but young people often feel they have to do it themselves as they can’t get the jobs. There needs to be a significant shift from graduate entry into jobs to 18-year-olds entering employment. We’re working in partnership with many employers - programmes with ITN, Mother London, SXSW, BuildHollywood, URBN - to broker that talent exchange.
As part of the Education Foundation we’re setting up we are establishing a creative agency to work with clients. I hope this will resonate with the sector to both provide a service and allow young people to build their portfolios.
You helped develop the first Creative Apprenticeship programme in a previous role in 2008. How has this progressed?
The wider issue is that we have rising youth unemployment and graduates in low paid jobs - so effectively overqualified - taking up the apprenticeships that are on offer, and so blocking the young creative who is just starting out.
Access to apprenticeships, therefore, needs to improve, especially to support the young creative, the economic growth of the sector and diversification of the workforce. The sector is made up of SMEs so it’s understandable apprenticeships are few and far between. But imagine there’s a way to convert all of the unpaid internships in the creative arts into apprenticeships, attach a relevant qualification and really set people up for a career in the sector and in turn support young people into jobs.