About - Culture Box Surrey

What is Culture Box Surrey?

Culture Box Surrey is the Cultural Education Partnership (CEP) for the county of Surrey. CEPs are a national initiative led by Arts Council England to promote cultural education for children and young people in local areas.

Our vision is that every child and young person in Surrey has the chance to experience and participate in high quality, inspiring arts and cultural learning both in, and out of, school. We also want to ensure that the voice of young people is heard when planning the future artistic and cultural landscape of Surrey.

What does Culture Box Surrey do?

Since early 2019 Culture Box Surrey has been instrumental in drawing down substantial external funding, almost all of which has been, or will be, used for direct delivery of cultural learning in schools. As of 2021 we are pleased to announce we have secured a further £209k from the Artswork – Better Lives Through Culture fund, underpinned by over £400k of match funding from partners including Surrey County Council (SCC), Delight and others. The focus of this funding is on children experiencing disadvantage and young people with less access to cultural learning opportunities. Between 2021 and 2023 we will be supporting a range of programmes in schools and beyond.

View our 2021 - 2023 programmes

Delight – working with around 25 primary schools, whose partners include Watts Gallery Artist’s Village and Guildford Shakespeare Company.
The Watts Gallery Artist’s Village – Families, Schools and Young People programmes.
Co-motion – a dance programme in collaboration with Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures and Stopgap Dance Company working in Surrey SEND schools, PRUs and high-quality online CPD to Surrey primary schools.
Developing four clusters of schools situated geographically across Surrey’s school improvement quadrants, supporting each other to work collaboratively on cultural programmes including Artsmark and Arts Award.
A programme of work in schools and other settings, in partnership with the Academy of Contemporary Music and Surrey Youth Focus, exploring issues of anxiety and well-being.
The development of a cohort of Youth Champions across all work-streams to ensure the voice of young people can contribute to and influence decisions about cultural education in Surrey.

We are working in the background to ensure we become an essential and sustainable feature of cultural activity in Surrey. This work includes sustainable governance, consultation with stakeholders, communication strategy, programme facilitation, project management and steering groups for the CEP.

For more information and updates please read our news.

Who is Culture Box Surrey?

Culture Box Surrey is led by a steering group comprising headteachers, leaders of cultural provider organisations, Artswork (the ACE Bridge organisation for south-east England) and others. The development of Culture Box Surrey is being facilitated by Surrey Arts (part of Surrey County Council).

Our partners

It is envisaged that the partnership will connect with schools, colleges, Surrey County Council children’s Services, cultural and heritage organisations, the local authority and local government, organisations related to public health and criminal justice, funding bodies, and national and regional arts organisations.

Our governance

Culture Box Surrey is an independent partnership which acts in accordance with a Memorandum of Understanding, a copy of which can be downloaded here.

A Steering Group has been convened to oversee the strategic development of the partnership consisting of:

Imogen Kinchin, Executive Director, New Adventures
Kathryn Mills, CEO, Delight
John Stephens (Chair), Senior Manager, SCC / Surrey Arts
Marie Cahill, Headteacher, New Haw Community Primary School, Addlestone
Sarah Lewis, Headteacher, St Mary’s C of E Primary School, Oxted
Cindy O’Sullivan, Head Teacher, Gosden House School, Guildford
Management and facilitation is provided by SCC / Surrey Arts