European Art & Design Teacher collaboration: NSEAD & APECV

NSEAD members at Casa da Imagem, Portugal

APECV X NSEAD Exchange 2026 | 24 - 27 July 2026 | Casa da Imagem, Portugal

This three-day event brought together Art and Design educators from across Europe for a programme of creative workshops, practical activities and professional dialogue, co-hosted by the Association of Teachers of Visual Expression and Communication (APECV) and the National Society for Education in Art & Design (NSEAD). The event offered a unique opportunity to explore strategies for better arts educational practices across cultural and national contexts, while creating a sustainable network of collaboration and knowledge exchange among classroom teachers.

Below is my opening speech for the event, expressing our hopes for this new development:

On behalf of the National Society for Education in Art and Design, it is a genuine pleasure and privilege to be here today. Firstly, I would like to thank our Portuguese colleagues at APECV (APECK) & Casa da Imagem for their incredibly warm hospitality and generous welcome. We are delighted to be here and deeply grateful to everyone who has worked so hard behind the scenes to organise this event. Bringing together colleagues from different countries is never a small task, and your commitment has made this gathering possible.

This is an occasion that has been many months in the making. We have been discussing, planning and imagining what a collaboration like this could become, and it is wonderful to finally see it become a reality. More importantly, I hope we all recognise that today is not the end of that process—it is the beginning.

Across Europe, we are all facing many of the same opportunities and many of the same challenges. We work in different education systems, speak different languages and operate within different cultural contexts, but we are united by a shared belief in the transformative power of art and design education. We know that creativity matters. We know that cultural understanding matters. We know that the arts help young people become confident, thoughtful and imaginative citizens who are prepared for an uncertain future.

Now, perhaps more than ever, there is a need for stronger European collaboration. We have so much to learn from one another. No single country has all the answers, but collectively we possess an extraordinary wealth of knowledge, experience and innovation. By working together, we can strengthen our profession, inspire one another and ensure that art and design education continues to flourish across Europe.

I very much hope that this is the first of many exchanges between our organisations. Today marks the beginning of an ongoing partnership. Teresa, Michele and I are already looking forward to welcoming our Portuguese colleagues to the United Kingdom next year, where we hope to continue these conversations and share our own schools, universities, museums and cultural organisations. Beyond that, our ambition is to grow this network further, building relationships with colleagues across Europe (Teresa and I are already speaking to art associations in Finland, Czech Republic, Austria, Sweden, Greece and Germany etc) creating a genuinely international community of practice.

The purpose of this collaboration is both simple and ambitious. We want to develop and share excellent practice in art and design education. We want to support the professional development of teachers throughout their careers. We want to exchange ideas that can enrich our classrooms and improve learning for young people. Ultimately, everything we do is about preparing our pupils and students for the future—a future that will demand creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, adaptability and imagination more than ever before.

We also recognise that art and design education does not exist in isolation. Strong education is built through partnerships. That is why we are committed to strengthening relationships with museums, galleries, cultural organisations, artists, universities and the diverse communities we serve. These partnerships expand opportunities for learners, deepen cultural understanding and remind us that education is always connected to the wider world.

During this visit we have chosen to focus particularly on the theme of inclusion. This feels both timely and important. Inclusion is not simply a policy or an aspiration; it is something we create through our everyday practice as educators. It asks us to think carefully about whose voices are represented, whose stories are told, whose experiences are valued and how every learner can find a sense of belonging within creative education.

Over the next few days, we will explore these ideas together through practical workshops, shared activities, visits and discussions. We have deliberately designed this programme to be active, collaborative and practice-based. We hope these sessions will encourage conversation as much as presentation, participation as much as observation, and curiosity as much as certainty.

So please ask questions. Share your experiences openly. Be curious about different approaches. Challenge ideas respectfully. Learn from one another. The greatest value of gatherings like this is not simply what happens in the programme—it is the conversations between sessions, the exchange of ideas, the friendships we begin to build and the partnerships that continue long after we return home.

I often say that as educators we should "be more like an artist and less like a bureaucrat." Artists are curious. They experiment. They collaborate. They imagine possibilities where others see obstacles. Those are exactly the qualities our education systems need, and they are exactly the qualities that international collaboration like this can nurture.

Thank you once again for your generosity, your welcome and your commitment to this shared endeavour. I look forward to learning alongside all of you over the coming days, and I hope that many years from now we will look back on this gathering as the moment when a lasting European partnership in art and design education truly began.

Thank you—and I wish you all an inspiring and enjoyable programme.