Over 25 years LEAN has initiated and supported many networks and partnerships with the arts sector and statutory and voluntary agencies.
As an independent organisation with a borough-wide reach and understanding of the cultural landscape, LEAN is uniquely placed to identify gaps in arts learning provision and broker solutions. We also warmly accept invitations to join collaborations and support independent partnerships as a critical friend.
Lewisham Cultural Education Partnership (LCEP)
Since 2024 LEAN has led on the set-up and facilitation of this cross-borough strategic partnership formed in response to the Lewisham’s Cultural Strategy. LEAN has brought together over representatives of 30 Arts organisations and Schools to form the LCEP. Stakeholders have worked together to establish shared aims and an action plan through a Theory of Change. FIND OUT MORE.
Past partnerships have included:
- Moving Stories: Embedding Dance and Drama in SEND teacher practice was a two-year project (2023–2025) led by the LEAN, in partnership with Trinity Laban and Peoplescape Theatre, and six Lewisham schools: Watergate, Brent Knoll, Drumbeat, New Woodlands and the Resource Bases at Tidemill and Athelney Primary. The project explored the effective integration of dance and drama to support communication, creativity, and personal agency among children with special educational needs and disabilities in SEND settings.
- The Rainbow Collective, an Early Years project that developed from research with music partners that revealed a gap in Early Years arts provision. The partnership included Lewisham Music, Horniman Museum and Gardens, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and Early Years settings. This partnership raised funds and delivered much needed practice-sharing, networking opportunities and support.
- Lewisham Live, an annual music and dance festival delivered by nine partners, including LEAN ran form 2010 -2021 This partnership developed as the individual organisations saw the benefits of bringing their showcase opportunities together into one high profile festival. The scale of the festival generated vast amounts of data that give the partners a fuller picture of the views of schools, children and young people and families than we could gather individually.
