On Tuesday 10 June 2025, creative and cultural providers, teachers, school senior leaders and local arts venues gathered together at Torre Abbey for a day-long symposium and a day of partnership working, connection & shared practice.
Huge thanks to the team at Torre Abbey for welcoming this event so generously, and particularly to Grace Melsher, the Torre Abbey Learning and Community Engagement Coordinator, who was deeply involved in the lead-up planning alongside Erin Walcon (Chair of Torbay Arts in Schools Network) and the rest of the Doorstep Arts team.
The day’s schedule included creative workshops, CPD sessions, fundraising & partnership signposting support, discussions about how to remove barriers for children & young people to access creative arts opportunities.
Food was provided by Gaia Giving Cafe, a local CIC who do important social justice work in the Torbay community from their cafe base in Paignton on Winner Street. Their delicious cakes fuelled the afternoon!
The packed day culminated with a keynote speech by Elizabeth Crump, MBE. Lizzie Crump is a Co-Director of What Next? What Next? is a UK-wide free-to-access movement that brings together both small and large organisations and freelancers, to debate and shape the future of the arts and culture, working to democratise power and policy making in the sector.
Lizzie is also a Visiting Engagement Fellow at Kings College London, an Arts Policy Associate for BookTrust, is the Chair of the Children and Young People’s Dance Programme Board and runs an arts education consultancy with Sam Cairns. Lizzie was the 2011/12 Clore Leadership Learning Fellow, and from 2022 – 2022 was the Vice Chair of the Government’s Expert Panel on Cultural Education. During the pandemic of 2021, she received an MBE for services to the arts.
She spoke compellingly in her keynote talk about the national picture, recent movement in public policy, and hopes for the future.
Many of the discussion sessions across the day were live-captured by visual artist illustration, thanks to William Dunstan and Katy Jackson for their work in visually scribing the conversations.
Katy Jackson, of Happy Apple Design, captured the discussion sessions based in the Ballroom. You can see some early glimpses of Katy’s live illustration work below and final versions of her artwork are also available here.
It was a packed schedule, with 18 sessions on offer across the day. Practical workshop sessions included an Introduction to Printmaking with Double Elephant Print Workshop, drumming with Drum Devon, radio and podcast making with Sound Communities from their Boom Bus, as well as walkabout visits from beautiful hand-crafted puppets by Flying with Strings Marionette Theatre, a drama workshop led by Doorstep Arts and a dance workshop led by experienced dance practitioners Paris Selley and Polly Ferguson-Carruthers.
The day also featured performance excerpts and sharing from Ubuntu Educational and Mentoring Services. Their exciting work is opening up essential critical conversations about equity and race, using the arts as a tool to hold safe spaces.
This symposium was hosted by Torbay Arts in Schools Network, a grassroots network of 71 local partners working together to improve access to creative arts opportunities for local children, young people, families and schools.
TASN partners include regional primary and secondary teachers, arts leads, theatre practitioners, music providers, dance specialists, visual artists, regional arts venues, museum education officers, freelancers, alternate education providers and others.
Discussion took place on Budgeting for Creativity, led by Moira Devonport (Torbay and South Devon Music Centre and Kings Ash Academy), with vital contributions from experts based in local schools – inspiring to hear how education partners are finding innovative solutions to ensure arts and creativity can still infuse the curriculum.
TASN serves as the regional Cultural Education Partnership for Torbay, and also as a Family Arts Network. TASN was awarded Family Arts Network status in 2024, so this work is still in early stage development with many exciting potentials. We were delighted to be joined at the Symposium by Anna Dever from the Family Arts Campaign, who spoke about their Family Arts Standards, Age Friendly Standards and Fantastic for Families Awards. So exciting to be linking Torbay more fully into this national work and we can’t wait to explore the next steps from this fab introduction from Anna.
Discussion sessions on the day included targeted work on ‘Systems Change: Arts-piration, Careers and Pathways’, led by Mark & Jim from Sound Communities – they brought Lego in for a practical and hands-on exploration of how we might change young people’s prospects in Torbay using the arts. This Arts-piration work is part of the Torbay Local Motion initiative, a groundbreaking programme aiming to profoundly change systems in areas of high need.
We had a rich and productive conversation about school field trips, exploring how we can overcome barriers to ensure that children and young people can access the arts, theatre, music, galleries, heritage sites and dance outside of their school settings, in spite of transport/access challenges. Partners joined together in a proactive, solutions-facing, partnership-rich conversation, building from pre-existing work which has taken place in TASN meetings.
Really inspiring to see our local venues such as The Princess Theatre, the Palace Theatre Paignton, Torquay Museum, and Torre Abbey co-leading this field trips conversation, trail-blazing new solutions and finding innovative ways to ensure that Torbay’s children can access the arts both inside and outside of school settings. Much of this work has been informed by the deep expertise of school partners, particularly long-time TASN partner Emma Hammond of Curledge Street Academy (TSAT Trust), who is working tirelessly to ensure that children across Torbay can continue to access the arts in meaningful and profound ways.
We discussed SEND provision, including Alternate Education, school refusing, and the importance of arts-rich approaches to ensure students who are not thriving in mainstream education can find a place and a way to engage. We also discussed Neurodiversity and arts approaches, celebrating the work of Neuro-diverse-led companies based in Torbay (South Devon Players). Huge thanks to Rachel Thame of Moor to Sea Music and Liz Day of Collectively Diverse for leading this conversations so beautifully – their deep expertise really helped to hold an important space for finding new solutions together.
We celebrated incredible long-term systems-change work, such as PaddleBoat Theatre Company‘s decade-long residency at White Rock Primary School in Paignton. Katy and Hattie from PaddleBoat talked about the contextual factors which make this kind of long-term deep working possible, in a session hosted by experienced producer Mair George (Villages in Action).
Other discussions included explorations of outside-the-box solutions to transport and access challenges (Culture Bus anyone?), where we explored how we might unite together with a shared voice to find new solutions to ensure every child has equitable access to arts and culture whilst growing up in Torbay. Huge thanks to the wonderful Lisa Money (Imagine This Network) for holding a dreaming space for these ideas.
Information sessions also explored accreditations such as Artsmark and Arts Award, and it was a particular joy to be joined by Taleblazers at lunchtime, who brought interactive forest school craft activities as part of their Arts Award delivery programme.
There is much more detail which will be shared following on from this event… you can check out the new 2025-26 TASN Shared Menu, more of Katy Jackson’s artwork from the day, with action-steps and more yet to come. We send huge thanks to all who attended – it was a partnership-rich, possibilities-facing day of action, and it felt like a galvanizing experience which can drive forward on new positive work in Torbay.
Artwork by Katy Jackson, Happy Apple Design.
This event was made possible thanks to support from Family Arts Campaign and the Doorstep Arts Inspiring Futures programme, funded by Arts Council England.