The RSA's Education for Capability movement was initiated in 1978 with a manifesto signed by some leading figures in education, industry and public life. It aimed to counteract the academic bias of British education and to promote the value of the practical, organising and co-operative skills too often underrated in the existing system. It encouraged creativity in its widest sense, believed that learners should share the responsibility for their own learning and emphasised the need for teaching and learning processes which themselves develop and use capability. The initiative was felt to be successful in promoting change in learning methods. A databank of good 'Capability' practise in all sectors was established from which networks were identified and developed.\n\nIn 1988 the project was directed towards higher education, to continue work in further education and to consolidate work in secondary schools and extend this to teacher training. [Adapted from Education for Capability literature]\nRecords include administrative correspondence and files and printed material
Joint initiative between Design Council and RSA
Electronic Education, its role in the learning society, was a conference held at the RSA in 1992. This series includes publications from that conference
Records include administrative correspondence and files, minutes of committees, printed matter and publicity materials and photographs
The Society's examinations were instituted in 1856 and work burgeoned over the ensuring decades. The RSA Examinations Board was responsible for the Society's role as a major examining body principally in commercial/office skills and languages (particularly English as a foreign language) ranging from elementary to post-graduate. The academic work of the Board was conducted mainly from the London offices whilst the operational work, including printing and data processing, was carried out at premises near Orpington. The Examinations Board became a separate Company in 1987 and was sold in 1997 at which point it merged with the Oxford and Cambridge Examinations Boards to form OCR. Records include administrative files and papers and printed material including some examples of examination papers at various dates. Examination papers for some years have also been bound into volumes of the Journal.\n\nRecords include general administrative correspondence, printed matter including examination question papers, syllabuses, reports and photographs. The collection does not include lists of individual candidates.
A collection of printed books acquired by the Society by gift and purchase about international trade exhibitions. It includes exhibitions in which the Society played no part and covers the period 1851 to 1951. The collection comprises contemporary catalogues, reports of Juries and other printed accounts of exhibitions. It also includes a number of printed booklets, pamphlets and maps and some more recent general works on exhibitions. Catalogues are in order of date of exhibition. \n\nSeries comprises printed books
This series comprises copy photographs of early views of the exterior of the Society's House from 1772 and of other premises occupied by the Society before this date. It also includes 20th century original images of the House, including the front and Strand elevations
Contains the minutes and papers of the following committees; the Membership Committee, the Regional Activities Committee and the Fellowship Committee.
The Focus on Food Campaign was an RSA flagship education initiative. This campaign builds on two projects completed in 1997: the RSA's Cooking Counts and the QCA's Food in Schools. The project was run by Design Dimensions, a charity, at the RSA at Dean Clough. \n\nThe Campaign aimed to raise the profile and importance of practical food education and help secure, sustain and strengthen the position and status of food in the National Curriculum. The work focused on the making of food as the key experience in learning about the social importance of food.\nSee: http://www.waitrose.com/focusonfood/\n\nThe RSA's involvement ended in February 2003 but the project will continue under the administration of Design Dimensions.\nRecords include publicity and printed material including teaching packs and photographs of events.
The Fourth Plinth project was initiated by RSA past Chairman Prue Leith. The RSA's central aims in this initiative were to: use the plinth to display works of art after the 150 year deadlock; raise the level of debate about the nature of public art today; and inform decisions about the plinth's permanent use. The project was co-ordinated by the RSA.\n\nAll files were appraised and routine correspondence removed.\n\nThe series consists of the administrative records from the initiation of discussions about the empty plinth to the the display of the scupltures: Ecce Homo by Mark Wallinger, Regardless of History by Bill Woodrow and Monument by Rachel Whiteread.
The records of the Free Society of Artists were deposited with the Society after it ended its own art exhibitions in 1764.\nRecords include minutes of a committee and printed catalogues of exhibitions
A series of lectures established in the late 1990s to explore more controversial issues beyond the main lecture programme.
\nRoutine administrative correspondence was retained by the Society for many years and remained untouched from the time it had been filed. No attempt had been made to arrange the bulk of this correspondence other than in approximate alphabetical order. The correspondence was appraised as part of the Archive Project of 1998-2002\n\nPhysical description and arrangement\nFirst series: c.1854 - c.1889\nThis series comprise bundles of general correspondence to the Society dating from 1854 to about 1889. There are some gaps: nothing dated 1856, 1859, 1860 and 1863 to 1867. They were arranged in alphabetical sequence by year (for example Letter 'A' 1856). Originally there were some 80,000 items of correspondence.\n\nSecond sequence: c.1895 to c.1915\nThis series of documents were filed in their original wood/board boxes during the period 1895 to 1915. The series originally consisted of about 60,000 items. These contained general correspondence to the Society arranged in alphabetical order by name of sender. \nContents include a very small number of pamphlets, printed texts, and circular letters sent to the Society on a range of topics covering all areas of the Society's work. The correspondence is routine administrative material.\nThe records are essentially background material to the Society's work, the most significant aspects of which will have been recorded in the Journal or individual printed reports, as well as in Council and committee minutes from the period.\nThe correspondence is arranged into two series. The first sequence (PR.GE.119/1-23) covers the period c.1850 to 1889, the second (PR.GE.119/24 -38) covers the years c. 1890 to c.1915. Subjects covered include:\nLectures; Examinations; Membership;Council/committee chairmen; Journal; Staff and general correspondence \n\n
The lecture programme developed from the 1850s when the Society ceased the award of premiums for inventions. Lecture texts have traditionally been published in the Journal.\nRecords comprise correspondence about administrative arrangements for speakers and for publication of their texts and suggestions for topics for discussion
Printed materials