ArtsSmarts is a dynamic approach to teaching, learning, doing and thinking that has been changing the lives of students, artists, educators, and entire schools and communities since 1998. We generate and sustain innovative school partnerships centred on the arts to push the boundaries of learning, redefine the environment of schooling, and re-imagine student success. In the classroom, ArtsSmarts engages students in the creative process through artistic inquiry into topics that span many different subject areas of the curriculum. Our aim is to improve student engagement and cultivate 21st Century learning skills such as the capacity to think creatively, understand deeply, take control of learning, work collaboratively and reflect. The success of our model, which can be applied to any discipline or grade level, is based on a process that is self-generated by teachers and artists to meet students' needs and priorities rather than a packaged curriculum lesson plan.Each ArtsSmarts program is locally designed and implemented by a partnership of multi-sectoral stakeholders, and the relationship between different sectors is one of the keys to ArtsSmarts' growing success. When the interests of schools, arts organizations, community partners, school boards, corporate partners and government converge, change can happen in a way that no single organization would have been able to predict or bring about in isolation.