Strategic Plan 2023-30

Strategic Plan

2023-2030

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This new vision and strategy will take us to our 40th anniversary and beyond. It builds on our rich heritage as a Higher Education Provider, aligning our values of arts and culture, people and place. We continue to value and promote discovery, embrace social change and bask in the glow of opportunity that our great City of Leeds provides.

Beyond our obligation, we see it as our duty to humanity and who we are as people to nurture a primary need to have culture in our lives. Our purpose is to educate, innovate and transform. We walk hand in hand with our academic and artistic communities, as skilled creatives, and as a responsible organisation, to imagine and deliver a quality experience for all.

Our strategic plan has been developed by and with our staff. It has our students and other stakeholders in mind. It focuses on four guiding principles, each with four enablers, that set out how we will deliver positive change locally, regionally and globally as a leading provider of arts practice.

Through our strategic plan 2023-2030, we consider: who we are; how we will grow our foundation; our visibility and our future. Each year we will publish practical commitments to the strategy and share stories of success and achievement.

1: Shaping Who we are

To utilise the very best of who we are as an organisation to the best of what we can and are able to do. To make a difference to society through our work (the art form, education, engagement, research and professional development) and through our people. To be globally-facing and achieve our ambition to be world-leading.

Equity

Embed and promote diversity through our staff and student base. To instil the identity of NSCD as an attractive place to study, create art and work for all.

Engage, Inspire, Educate

Develop opportunities which enable students and young people to participate and engage with quality dance activities with stakeholders, collaborators, partners and organisations.

Development of Talent

Enable everyone to achieve the best of their potential and for the organisation to achieve the best possible outcomes.

Accessibility

Enable access to our provision, opportunities and benefits. Where opportunities are equal, transparent and fair.

2: Building Our Foundation

To create a resilient, sustainable and ambitious growth of our physical environment and activities which offers a financially secure future and great value for money for our stakeholders.

Financially Sustainable

Create an environment of financial stability by enhancing our core business through effective cost management systems and value for money.

Environmentally Sustainable

Remain resourceful, resilient and environmentally sustainable in the context of all our work, our people and place

Centre of Cultural Knowledge

Support others through building a centre of cultural knowledge, with improved and up-to-date resources, which are used by both the school and the communities we serve.

People and Place

Invest time and energy in stakeholder and relationship management to be a key driver which contributes to the city's ambition and cultural strategic vision.

3: Building Our Visibility and Profile

To utilise the strength of our brand and our work to tell our story, share our narratives and to create new and inspiring legacies.

Brand Identity

To re-visit our brand to represent us authentically; as accessible, communicative, encouraging and influential.

Building Relationships

We place importance on making long-lasting connections and building relationships effectively with students, partners, organisations, and people who work with us.

Visibility

Prioritise our website as an important aspect of our brand, communication, and messaging.

Making a Difference

Let our audiences take home from our work key messages that reflect our societies and cultures.

4: Shaping Our Future

To realise our ambition to connect with others, secure our drive to offer our own degrees and encourage others to advocate for the work we do and who we are as a provider for the region, sector and global market.

Valuing Relationships

Connect to others through valued partnerships, opportunities, share and create new knowledge. Support grassroots development, community ideals, learning and stakeholder engagement.

Ambition

Realise our ambition to drive our culture of research forward, to make a difference to the artform and to seek new knowledge in a global context.

Advancing Our Offer

Facilitate the development of course provision, artistic excellence, youth talent and investment in partnership growth.

Taking Action

Work with advocates towards a more progressive and inclusive society and to inspire people to take action.

Our Commitments

2023/24

Undertake an accessibility audit of the building using a variation of critical friends of varying ages and abilities.
Begin the process and submit our application for Full degree Awarding Powers to the OfS
Increase the number of collaborative projects which make the best use of inhouse programming and external artist and partnerships opportunity.
Research models for the NSCD Advocate Scheme
Draw out and share Knowledge exchange potential of events in and around the curriculum
Review a develop the whole school curriculum to include new movement forms and subject disciplines, ensuring that courses continue to offer the provision at the very top of the sector, building on our conservatoire values.
Further utilise the functionality of Quercus across all courses to ensure cohesive and efficient system of application to courses.
Maintain and develop an equal, inclusive and transparent Admissions Process with evaluation strategies embedded into the process
Embed new provision to support bodywork within the school, establishing new partnerships with practitioners.
Evaluate student Financial Assistance to ensure it is reaching target students.
Develop key led student societies and encourage students from protected characteristics to be represented on all boards and committees including Board of Governors
Implement a quality assurance and compliance cycle across School Boards and Committees
Develop a Student Union Council to represent the student body and the broad range of student voices to inform progress, activism and nurture the NSCD student community.
Develop a framework for analysing costs and profitability for individual activities undertaken by the school.
Review Charitable status for the organisation or strands of organisation to access funding opportunities
Positively reflect and celebrate the diversity of our student and staff base through our news stories and social media coverage.
Create a menu of activities across L&P / CAT / NSCD+ provision, opening out offer to schools / community settings and youth groups etc.
Increase the quantity of intensive programmes for young people to engage with.
Generate further connections with the sector for profiling youth voice and commitment to the art form.
Design and incubate an access programme of activities with 6+ partner UK (England & Wales) youth dance organisations from a pilot delivered in 2022/23
Draw together a plan to engage with more Schools Partnerships as a result of coming out of pandemic, with more potential to connect.
Utilise CAT Outreach to offer targeted provision in specific targeted schools, offering short/ long interventions.
Develop further opportunities to platform and implement CAT Outreach Teachers CPD