This page presents selected city-level data to help interpret findings from the Cultural Learning Leeds School Survey.
While the survey captures how schools engage with arts and cultural activity, the data below provides essential context on population, deprivation and participation patterns that shape access to creative opportunities for children and young people across Leeds.
The focus is not to describe the city in full, but to highlight structural factors that influence cultural engagement in schools.
To understand life for young people in Leeds, we are starting to bring together various open data sources that represent the populations of Leeds and where they are spread out across the city. The visualisations below represent the wards in Leeds where there is a greater population of young people, as well as the wards experiencing greater levels of deprivation. These factors give us an indication of the barriers young people might be facing to accessing cultural education.
This map represents the percentage of people in each ward whom are under 19 years old. Lighter colours indicate areas with a greater proportion of young people.
Evidence shows that children in more deprived areas face additional barriers to cultural participation, including cost, transport and availability of provision.
The indices of multiple deprivation, by Leeds ward. Lighter colours reflect areas of higher deprivation.
This map shows the estimated proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals (FSM) across Leeds, used as an indicator of socio-economic context. School-level data has been mapped to wards and combined based on pupil numbers, so larger schools contribute more to the ward-level figure. Figures are indicative and reflect school location rather than pupils’ home addresses.
Schools across Leeds offer varying levels of arts opportunities for students. Artsmark is the national creative quality standard for schools in England, accredited by Arts Council England, while Arts Award provides recognised qualifications that inspire young people to their creativity and leadership skills. Together, these programmes serve as key indicators of young people’s access to high-quality arts education.
To support findings from our research, we have extracted open data on Artsmark status and Arts Award provision in schools across Leeds. This helps identify areas that are underserved by creative education and can inform policy, shape targeted interventions, and foster new partnerships between schools and cultural providers. To view this data in more detail, visit the Schools page. To download the data, visit the Data Catalogue.
The number of schools in Leeds that offer an Arts Award, by ward. This data includes schools that offered an Arts Award as of 2022/23 academic year. Lighter colours indicate there are more schools that offer an Arts Award in that ward.
The Arts Award centres by ward who are known to have engaged with schools and young people as part of their activities. Lighter colours indicate there are more Arts Award centres that engage with schools in that ward.
This map represents the state-funded schools in each ward that have been awarded Artsmark accreditation. This figure does not include schools that are working towards their award. Lighter colours indicate there are more schools in that ward with Artsmark accreditation.
The cultural organisations with addresses in each ward - there are 7 organisations in our dataset that were not assigned to a ward. Lighter colours indicate areas where more cultural organisations are based.
The organisations in each ward that have been awarded funding as part of the Leeds Cultural Investment Programme. Lighter colours represent areas where more grants were awarded.
The wards where organisations funded by the Leeds Cultural Investment Programme deliver activities. Lighter shades indicate areas with a higher concentration of cultural activity.
The number of young people opting for Drama, Music, Design & Technology, Media and Dance has been steadily declining since 2010, whereas the number of students taking Arts & Design is roughly the same. Individual subject entries are presented as a percentage of total entries.
Data were taken from the Department for Education's Key Stage 4 Performance tables. Design & Technology subject-level data is only available from Academic Year 2018-19.
Following a similar trend as GCSE level entries, the overall takeup of Arts subjects at A Level has declined since 2010. Figures are presented as a percentage of total entries across all subjects.
Data were taken from the Department for Education's A level and other 16 to 18 results publication.