Recruitment of Schools
We encourage Lead Associate Schools to refresh clusters every two years by re-recruiting in the local area. A number of resources are available to support you in recruiting new Associate Schools to join your cluster.
Eligibility
The Associate Schools Programme is our targeted partnership programme for schools in England. To be eligible to join the programme, schools must meet one or more of the criteria below.
The school is situated in one of the Levelling Up for Culture Places, as previously defined by Arts Council England.
The school is situated in on of the 55 Education Investment Areas, as previously defined by the Department for Education.
The percentage of pupils eligible for Free School Meals or Pupil Premium must be equal to or higher than the annual national average.
If the school does not exceed the national average of pupils eligible for Free School Meals or Pupil Premium, they must be able to clearly demonstrate need within their local context.
Why recruit?
We encourage Lead Associate Schools to renew agreements with their Associate Schools and recruit new schools to their clusters so that:
Clusters maintain a healthy size of between 10 and 12 schools. The RSC are aiming to reach 300 schools through the Associate Schools Programme.
Schools remain invested in the Associate Schools Programme, and can access opportunities offered to our partners.
Schools in the cluster continue to meet our eligibility criteria.
We understand that circumstances in schools evolve, for example, leadership, strategy and staffing may shift and impact whether a school is able to commit to the programme. Refreshing the cluster also provides schools with low engagement with an exit strategy from the programme.
Recruitment Strategy
Your RSC Relationship Manager will work with the Lead Associate School(s) and Associate Regional Theatre (where applicable) to create a recruitment strategy and timeline. This may include the following steps:
1. Identifying local eligible schools
Your RSC Relationship Manager can search our database for schools in the local area who have booked activity with the RSC in recent years.
Lead Teachers at the Lead Associate School(s) and Associate Regional Theatre (where applicable) can suggest local schools in their networks.
2. Make contact with SLT at the target schools
Your RSC Relationship Manager can contact the school using publically available email and phone numbers, and contacts details from the RSC's database (if available).
Lead Teachers at the Lead Associate School(s) and Associate Regional Theatre (where applicable) may have contact details for SLT members or may be able to contact SLT members through local networking groups.
We have created a range of resources to help share information about the Associate Schools Programme, including e-flyers and our Time To Act executive summary leaflet.
As part of the initial approach, you might want to invite SLT or prospective teachers at the target schools to a recruitment event or activity.
3. Hosting a recruitment event
When engaging schools that are new to the programme, we encourage in-person activity as we find this can be more effective than online. This might be a targeted Open Evening; a CPD training day; a Shakespeare Ambassadors' Sharing or event; a Playmaking Festival or First Encounters production; or a combination of these.
We encourage you to host your own Open Evening, which might include:
introduction from Lead Associate School and/or Associate Regional Theatre.
presentations for the Lead Associate School(s) and/or Associate Regional Theatre, or the RSC.
information about our research, Time To Act, and the impact of the programme.
a taster of practical work to share the rehearsal room pedagogy, led by a Lead Teacher.
We have found that advocacy from your Senior Leadership Team and practical work led by teachers is most impactful and effective when engaging new schools. Some clusters may choose to create their own recruitment materials to make their recruitment event bespoke to their local area.
4. Invite schools to register their interest
As part of your recruitment event, or following it, you should share a call to action for interested schools to submit an Expression of Interest form to join the cluster. This form includes questions for the school to demonstrate the need in their community, their commitment to arts-rich education, and support from their Senior Leadership Team and Governors.
You will need to agree a deadline for submissions and a date to review the submissions with the Lead Associate School(s), your Associate Regional Theatre (if applicable) and your RSC Relationship Manager.
Depending on the number of schools that express their interest to join the cluster, you may choose to hold informal interviews as part of your selection process. We would also encourage clusters to prioritise schools with higher levels of Free School Meals and/or Pupil Premium, so that we are working with schools and young people with the most need and the least access to the Arts.
5. Invite schools to join the cluster
Once you have agreed if a school is joining your cluster, your RSC Relationship Manager will work with you to communicate this with them. We would recommend the following next steps:
Create a partnership agreement between the Lead Associate School(s) and the new Associate School.
Convene a cluster meeting for the new schools, to set out the upcoming activity for the year and expectations for engagement within your cluster.
Where a school is unsuccesful, we feel it is important to thank them for their application and share other ways that they can engage with the RSC and their local Associate Regional Theatre (where applicable). Your RSC Relationship Manager will be able to advise on this.
