Peer Productions is a small arts charity and have been running Arts Award since 2007. They take on a cohort of young people aged 16-23 years who train as actors and peer educators. The young company then deliver a series of plays and projects in the community.
With support from the Creative Employment Programme and local council, they have recruited this year's team as Level 3 Community Arts Apprentices. Whilst they continue to deliver their groundbreaking work in the community, this year's team will access Gold Arts Award as part of their apprenticeship framework and will be paid for their efforts.
Peer Productions are working in partnership with North Herts College to create a holistic apprenticeship model. As well as working for Peer Productions as Actors in the Community the apprentices' learning is subcontracted to Peer Productions from North Herts College. This means that the delivery of both Gold Arts Award and the Level 3 Diploma in Community Arts Management is delivered by Peer Productions team and interwoven into their training programme. This also means that, for the first time, Peer Productions is able to access funding from the Skills Funding Agency for the training they provide.
Young people at Peer Productions have previously created Arts Award portfolios in A3 folders to record their work. Peer Productions are also looking into new ways to record Arts Award work.
They piloted the use of e-portfolios and presented all Arts Award work on a member’s only area of their word press site.
As the young people moved to apprenticeships, their partner college requested that all subcontractors use the onefile e-portfolio system. Gold Arts Award will be uploaded to the online system which allows the Arts Award adviser to track progress and set assignments via the system.
One of the first young people who completed Gold with Peer Productions had been excluded from school and college. He was dyslexic and had struggled in conventional education. Completing his Arts Award portfolio was the first thing he had ever felt truly proud of. Completing Arts Award and volunteering with Peer Productions really gave his confidence a boost. He now works as an independent film maker alongside his day job working in security. Whilst not specifically arts related, he credits the skills he learned doing his Arts Award as key in his ability to do his job properly.
‘Arts Award is a uniquely flexible qualification which allows young people from a wide range of backgrounds to have their achievements recognised and celebrated. It is an incredibly broad qualification and has been designed to work in a wide range of settings. Before you start trying to make new schemes of work, look at what you are already delivering. The chances are, you will be able to map a great deal of it to the qualification with minimal tweaks.’ - Nina Lemon, Founder of Peer Productions