The arts and emotional well-being in schools
The arts play an important role in the school curriculum. They can also be used in innovative ways to explore issues relating to the lives of young people. For example, theatre-in-education groups enable young people to explore a range of topics through drama – in ways that are both practical and imaginative.
Approaches to health promotion
Many practices developed through arts education projects can be valuable in the delivery of health promotion. Some projects are designed to directly explore issues relating to mental health and emotional well-being. Others focus indirectly on health – by providing, for example, safe and supportive environments where young people feel free to express themselves.
Benefits
Whatever approach is taken, the arts have the capacity to put into practice many of the theories and principles that underpin health promotion in schools. For example, the arts can help to create and develop school environments that are of benefit to emotional well-being – and the positive links between emotional well-being and learning, development and education are well documented.
Ground rules
So what are the ground rules common to successful arts education projects? Many of them are also fundamental to emotional well-being, for example:
- people feel safe to take risks
- the learning journey is not premeditated
- it is a whole-group experience
- contracts or rules are negotiated
- the creative activity is not seen as being quantifiable or academic
- the form is evolving and changing
- the work is action based, that is: 'learning by doing'
- the creativity remains fictional
- all who participate have equal rights to the development of the work.
Useful links
Scottish Arts Council
The website of the Scottish Arts Council – a non-departmental public body that funds the arts in Scotland – provides information on education programmes.
