PBE helps charities like Artis to measure their impact. Our relationship with Artis began in 2020 when they attended one of our Unlocking Impact workshops.

Almost always, our advice at these sessions is to gather data regularly, to build stronger evidence over time and establish greater confidence in key findings. In this blog we review how the team at Artis has done just that, now with over 1,600 sets of data, not only helping them to build evidence of their impact with increasing confidence but also starting to inform how they deliver their support.

Encouraging early evidence

Artis is a charity that creates space for learning creatively in primary schools. After gathering data on key mental health indicators for the 2020/21 academic year, Artis partnered with PBE to evaluate the economic impact of its work.

As our report describes, the early results were encouraging: 

  • Children who demonstrated elevated levels of initial difficulties saw a clear improvement in their socio-emotional outcomes between the beginning and end of the Artis programme, even after accounting for possible natural recovery over time.
  • If these improvements in outcomes do not fade over time, then we estimated the lifetime economic benefit per child with elevated needs is around £8,700, from improvements in truancy, exclusion, crime, smoking, adult mental health and earnings. 
  • This is the equivalent of lifetime benefits of up to £2,300 for the average child in the Artis programme. 
  • For every £1 invested in Artis’ programme, there could be as much as a £32 return in long-term economic benefits. 

The initial analysis of Artis’ impact was based on a single year of data collected during the Covid pandemic when sessions moved online and pupils’ anxiety levels were high. It was reasonable to question whether a different cohort might produce different results. Through consistent data collection since 2020/21, Artis has built a stronger evidence base, enabling PBE to analyse new cohorts and enhance the robustness of the early findings. The repeat exercise was undertaken first on the 2021/22 data at the end of that academic year and then again on the 2022/23 cohort. The findings of both analyses were reassuringly consistent with the original study.

Increasing confidence over time

More recently, Artis has gathered data for its fifth cohort over the 2024/25 academic year. This latest round of data collection is broader in scope. Alongside the usual mental health indicators for pupils taking part in the programme in school, Artis has piloted an online programme for which similar data has been collected. It has also expanded its measures to include outcomes on pupils’ confidence, communication, and participation.

PBE analysed this information to assess whether outcomes for the 2024/25 cohort corroborate previous findings, to compare outcomes across the online and in-person groups, and to explore whether pupils show improvements not only in socio-emotional wellbeing but also in their confidence, communication skills, and participation levels.

The results, once again, are encouraging:

  • First, the findings are consistent with that of the initial study, and indeed, with all subsequent cohorts. The data shows that while, on average, all pupils demonstrate better socio-emotional outcomes, the greatest improvements (at 37%) are seen in pupils with high levels of need. This group shows better outcomes on a range of indicators: hyperactivity, conduct, emotional issues and peer problems. Pupils with an initial average level of need show the most progress in prosocial areas, including empathy, social engagement, and positive relationships. Overall, all pupils see the greatest reduction in hyperactivity levels.
  • Second, we find that the benefits of the programme do not diminish when it is delivered online. This finding comes with the usual caveat that it is a ‘one-off’ finding based on a single year of data and for a smaller cohort. To establish greater confidence in this conclusion, Artis will need to collect and monitor data for the online programme over a number of years, as it has done with in-person groups. Nonetheless, this is an encouraging early finding as it highlights the potential for greater cost-effectiveness if the benefits can be maintained at a substantially lower cost. Anecdotal evidence suggests that at least part of this success may be explained by the fact that children with high needs, or those who struggle to focus, appear to benefit from the uncluttered design of the online sessions that are delivered free of any distractions with communication perceived as personal to the individual child.
  • Third, newly collected data on confidence, communication and participation outcomes all show notable improvement across all pupil groups. While this data is currently available only for in-person participants, it demonstrates that the Artis intervention helps pupils collaborate more effectively, express themselves more fluently, listen attentively, and work well with others. Consistent with the socio-emotional findings, pupils with higher levels of need show the greatest overall improvement in these outcomes. As before, these initial findings are promising and continued monitoring over time will help Artis establish greater confidence in their validity.

Leading the way

Overall, the growing body of evidence from multiple years of data collection reaffirms the programme’s effectiveness in enhancing pupils’ socio-emotional wellbeing, while newer data highlights good gains in confidence, communication, and participation, particularly among those with higher levels of need. These benefits extend beyond this group though, as pupils with average initial need (which is the larger cohort) also show notable improvements in prosocial behaviours such as empathy, cooperation, sharing, and helping others, enabling them to build stronger and more positive relationships.

An updated cost benefit ratio was outside the scope of this latest study. But, assuming service delivery of the programme has not varied significantly, the mental health improvements in these new cohorts are similar to those of the original 2020/21 cohort, so it seems likely that the programme continues to generate significant value for money.

Artis’s commitment to regular, high-quality data collection has enabled it to use previous findings about the impact and cost-effectiveness of its arts intervention with far greater confidence. By continuing to strengthen its evidence base and expanding the scope of its data across both in-person and online delivery, the charity is leading the way in showing how sustained data collection can build confidence in outcomes, inform delivery, and unlock greater long-term value for children and society. Artis is an excellent case study of how consistent, evidence-led evaluations deliver value and impact.