Trinity College London has released a white paper this month, Career-Ready: Bridging the Employability Skills and Confidence Gap. The report highlights ‘both a confidence and skills gap reported by young people as they transition from education to employment, and explores the role of performance and creative education such as music, drama and dance in closing those gaps’. This may feel like an obvious correlation to draw for those of us who regularly witness the positive power of arts education, but the need for this report is evidence enough that this is a novel insight for some.
As we are all too well aware, the landscape we find ourselves in as a nation is a result of the systematic eradication of the arts from our schools since the 2010s. Resulting in a 42% drop in entries to GCSE and A-level arts subjects between 2010 and 2023 (Arts and Minds Campaign).
According to the Trinity College report, of our young people entering the workplace today ‘42% worry about working with unknown people, 38% fear face-to-face small talk, and 30% experience phone anxiety’. These challenges are not personality quirks, they are symptoms of young people missing opportunities to develop confidence, communication and self-expression. All issues for which there is a resounding understanding of the solution: an experience of arts education.
So, at this fulcrum where the arts are both evidently needed and marginalised in our education system, how can we specifically support our young people to build better futures for themselves?
Young people today are living in two worlds: the real one, and the digital one. The pressure to conform, to be “safe,” to blend in, has intensified dramatically. Underneath the reluctance to speak up, meet new people or take small social risks lies a deeper issue – a crisis of self-esteem.
Arts subjects and arts teachers were my lifeline at school. Without them, my path would have been very different. They gave me a space to grow into myself, something many young people today are not being offered.
In my work with Highly Sprung, through school projects, workshops, and nine years leading Sprung Youth, I have seen the transformative impact of physical theatre on young people’s confidence and individuality.
This is where I offer my own experience of seeing young people’s individuality grow and flourish through their engagement in Highly Sprung’s work. Whether I am in a school for one day, one week or witnessing a child join Sprung Youth at 10 years old and leave at 19, I am truly not exaggerating when I say the common thread of their experiences is that they are transformative.
The engagement with physical theatre gives them the permission to take off all of the heaviness of social anxiety and social expectation. They can leave it at the door.
From the first warm-up game that is played, they are invited to join the group, with no other condition than that they must join wholeheartedly. There is no requirement to look, act, or be a certain way. What they bring with their unique physicality and creativity is celebrated and accepted. That feeling of unconditional acceptance and nurturing of individuality allows young people to know that it is possible. That it is what makes them uniquely them that is the richest, most brilliant contribution they can make. No wrong answers. A space to experience success and failure anchored in the resilience of self-trust, and that their belonging in this group will not be compromised.
Sustained access to arts experiences doesn’t just build transferable career skills – it builds happier, more self-assured human beings. As we face a moment where the arts are both urgently needed and dangerously marginalised, we cannot ignore what is at stake.
My hope is that this renewed attention to the power of arts education leads to real integration of the arts back into education. Our young people deserve opportunities that nurture confidence, resilience and individuality – not just for their future careers, but for their lives.