5 reasons why advisers choose to deliver Arts Award

Arts Award advisers come from a variety of backgrounds and sectors, all for their own reasons. We pick out just five reasons why advisers deliver Arts Award.

1. To develop the next generation of art leaders
The Arts Award Impact Study looks in detail at how Arts Award helped to develop leadership and independence in young people who engaged with the qualification. By following 68 young people beyond their Bronze, Silver or Gold projects, the report’s authors concluded that the experience had provided important transferable skills, supporting ongoing work on other arts projects. Arts Award gave the students confidence to make decisions and lead others towards their creative development. And lets not forget about the projects which combine social action and the arts, encouraging young people to engage with issues affecting them and their community, championing good causes and giving them a voice to affect change.

As we’ve highlighted in a previous post, “The employability of students who study arts subjects is higher and they are more likely to stay in employment”. Arts Award advisers contribute to this success by encouraging important 21st century skills in young people, creating well-rounded individuals capable of working across different fields.

2. To provide opportunities for young people

This is a point that we often hear from advisers working with young people who face barriers to access and inclusion, or from those leading projects outside of a formal classroom setting. For the former, advisers recognise the value that young people place on the qualification they receive for their Arts Award work. Many young people might have never received another qualification, for a host of reasons. So, for these young people achieving an Arts Award can be a huge boost, in several cases leading to employment or further study.

Advisers delivering extracurricular arts activity also value Arts Award, as it allows young people to gain accreditation for work that is often more relevant to their own interests. It might be an after-school drama club or a digital project which engages their love of coding. The flexibility offered by Arts Award has allowed advisers to encourage young people to explore what interests them, without the limitations they might face within curriculum time.

3. Because you can apply it across a huge variety of art forms

One of Arts Award’s strengths is its flexibility. Any art form can be delivered as part of an Arts Award project. For instance, did you know you can get an Arts Award for reading and writing? How about  creating videogames? Many advisers see delivering Arts Award as a way of expanding young people’s understanding of what art forms are available – just recently we were told about a young person who was shocked to find that Coronation Street was produced by artists!

Arts Award encourages exploration of artists and their work, something that advisers have taken as an opportunity of introducing the multitude of different art forms that surround us every day, and in ways that young people might experience but take for granted.

4. To support the case for STEAM powered learning

As advocates for a STEAM model of learning, the Arts Award team are big fans of this reason! STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) are rightly seen as vitally important, but a STEAM model puts Arts in line with these. Arts Award gives advisers a framework with which to embed creative elements into STEM subjects, or vice versa.

Job opportunities in the creative industries are growing, and it’s gratifying to equip students who will make a mark in this sector. Advisers understand the importance that good arts education has in maintaining this growth.

5. Because it’s rewarding

We’ll an adviser speak for themselves: