Call-out for Schools: Cultural Match Programme

North East Museums Regional Learning Team are seeking schools from across the North East with early career teachers (ECTs+5years) to apply for the Cultural Match Programme. Successful schools will be given a £3,000 budget to work with a Creative Producer to address existing or emerging pupil needs through culture and creativity.

Call-out for Schools to apply for the Cultural Match Programme

Schoolchildren looking at an interactive screen in a museum.

Programme Outline

In our Cultural Match programme, early career teachers (ECTs, which includes teachers in their first five years of teaching) will identify an existing or emerging need within their school.  They will be given a £3,000 budget to work with a Creative Producer and their pupils to address this need through a cultural and creative response.  Cultural Match will match up each school with a local cultural venue to develop a long-term partnership. 

We are inviting schools to submit proposals that identify a key issue faced by their school, and consider how arts and culture could be used to address this issue.

We will select 13 schools to work with the Cultural Match Creative Producer to look at how they can meaningfully develop arts engagement in school, to address the current needs of their pupils and develop their cultural provision, supporting them in building relationships with North East Museums venues and/or other cultural venues in the region.

We will prioritise schools in areas of high deprivation, remote schools, those, those experiencing poor transport links and those with barriers to engagement with cultural activity and allocate £3,000 per school for delivery of activity. This funding can be used to pay for transport, artists and visits to cultural venues as well as other project costs.

We designed the Cultural Match programme because we know that cultural capital is a significant tool that young people can use to achieve success in life – broadening experiences and promoting character-building qualities and skills. Engaging in cultural activity increases confidence, encourages self-expression, and broadens understanding of the world.

This project, funded by North East Combined Authority, aims to increase the confidence of teachers in their early careers in creating partnerships with cultural organisations.

Aims of Cultural Match

  1. To connect children and young people, schools and communities with art and cultural opportunities and experiences in response to their needs.
  2. To increase the participation of pupils in cultural activities, enable them to visit cultural venues, and increase cultural capital.
  3. To identify and develop creative responses to key issues faced by schools.
  4. To connect with ECTs and build their confidence in working in partnership with cultural organisations.
  5. To include opportunities for ECTs and their mentors to share learning with each other, the cohort and also back at school.
  6. To culminate in the sharing of learning at exhibitions and events for the school community and to enable schools to document their projects to make a professionally produced show reel that will be used to share project outcomes.
  7. To enable North East Combined Authority and North East Museums to further identify and understand the current key issues faced by schools, support schools to respond to this, and roll out findings.

Criteria

Through this work, North East Museums’ Regional Cultural Learning team are seeking to:

  • Engage with 13 schools to submit proposals that identify a key issue faced by each school and how arts and culture will be used to address this.
  • Focus work on remote schools, in areas of high deprivation, experiencing poor transport links and barriers to engagement with cultural activity.
  • Allocate £3k per school to deliver each project funded by North East Combined Authority.
  • Host a whole-cohort CPD session on the importance of cultural capital, the benefits of partnerships with cultural organisations, and how to broker cultural partnerships and embed pupil voice in planning and decision-making. (7 October 2025)
  • Have a requirement for children and young people to be involved in the planning for programme delivery (school led- supported by producer and matched cultural venue).
  • Require schools to nominate an ECT who will lead on this work for their school, and to commit to them receiving mentor support in school to embed the learning from the project.
  • Require mentors to attend some of the peer learning sessions. 2 mornings and 1 full day.
  • Create a peer learning network of these teachers, who will meet regularly and support one another as the programme develops. 3 full days.

Timescales

  • Application deadline – Wednesday 17 September 2025.
  • Grants allocated in October 2025 for work to commence.
  • Project development – October 2025 – December 2025.
  • Introduction –drop in chat - for ECT’S to be attended online on 30 September 2025.
  • CPD session to be attended in person on 7 October 2025 by ECTs and mentors at Great North Museum: Hancock.
  • Peer learning sessions to take place on 26 November, 18 March and 23 June at a North East Museums venue.
  • Project delivery to be started by January 2026 and completed by July 2026.

Contact

If you have any questions or would like an informal discussion about this work, please contact: charlotte.dack@northeastmuseums.org.uk to arrange a call.

How to apply

Please complete the application form and return to charlotte.dack@northeastmuseums.org.uk by 5pm on Wednesday 17 September.