Jenny Smith, Arts Coordinator at Hawthorn Tree School in Boston, Lincolnshire tells us about her delivery of Arts Award Discover and Bronze Arts Award through dance, which was launched after attending a CPD session run by Royal Ballet and Opera. As part of our celebration of community projects on the blog this month, Jenny talks about their partnership with a local community arts organisation and how the annual lanterns festival brings the community together and enables their young people to create evidence for Bronze Arts Award.
‘Not more workload!’ was my first thought when I came across Arts Award at an arts conference when I’d just started in my new role as school Art Co-ordinator. I wasn’t sure how I could possibly fit Arts Award in. Fast forward a couple of years and my Headteacher offered me some CPD run by Royal Ballet and Opera (RBO) through their ‘Create and Dance’ programme for schools. The Key Stage 1 & 2 programme is available based on the online content of the performance of The Nutcracker, amongst other performance options.
The CPD was inspiring. Again, Arts Award was mentioned, however, this time with a pre-prepared, printable Arts Award Discover log book created by RBO for children to complete the Award linked to the ballet. That was how Arts Award started at our school as my interest was sparked.
The RBO dance unit we completed in school lent itself to meeting the Arts Award evidence requirements and still covered what the children needed to do for the National Curriculum. The children loved completing the dance work and feedback was given from RBO to the children on ways they could improve their dance performance. Following the feedback, time was given to work on their changes and to resend a recording of the dance.
Dance lessons
As a class teacher I run Arts Award Discover for the lower Key Stage 2 children during their dance lessons. For Part A (Discover) the children are introduced to The Nutcracker through RBO videos. They are given a brief overview of the story and meet the characters. The children take on the parts of the mice and the soldiers and create a dance using motifs shown to them in the short videos. For Part B (Find Out), the weekly RBO videos introduce the dancers who play the characters. The children select one that has inspired them and think about questions to ask them. For Part C (Share) the children show what they enjoyed and learnt from doing Arts Award Discover by performing their dance piece to other adults in school. Photographs are taken to add to their portfolio.
Bronze Arts Award Dance Club
I also run a dance club where pupils can complete their Bronze Arts Award through dance. The Arts Award group starts over the summer holidays with them completing their research on an artist at home (Part C: Arts Inspiration). Before the holidays, we look together at principal dancers from RBO and the children decide who they would like to research.
We organise a trip for the children to ‘Explore the arts as an audience member’ (Part B) which has included going to see performances such as Matilda, Frozen and last year, A Christmas Carol by the Northern Ballet Company. The children spend the first term working on their chosen theme for Part A (Explore the arts as a participant) such as conservation (via Lion King) or this year they chose Winter Wonderland.
During a lunch break once a week, the group work on their Arts Award portfolios and time is set aside for them to complete their ‘Arts Skills Share’ (Part D). For the Skills Share the group teach their own choreography to Year 4 children which in turn inspires those children to get involved in Arts Award in the future.
Working with Transported
Several years ago, my role of Art Co-ordinator changed to Arts Co-ordinator. From coordinating the art provision across the school, I was then responsible for writing the over-arching policy for the arts and leading on Arts Award and our Arts Ambassadors programme. I was approached by a local community arts organisation, Transported to see if I was interested in completing some projects with them. Transported are National Lottery and Arts Council England funded and run a ‘community-focused programme which aims to get more people in Boston Borough and South Holland enjoying and participating in arts activities.’
Our first project with Transported involved lantern making for the annual ‘Illuminate’ festival which is held locally. This involves a lantern parade which weaves its way through the town culminating in the Christmas lights switch on. Ruth Piggot, an artist from Transported leads the event and there is a different theme each year. The artists involved come to schools to work with the children to create lanterns from willow and a special type of tissue paper. In the past the children have created radishes and turnips, fish and last year with the theme being folktales, they created lanterns for The Three Billy Goats Gruff. The children enjoy making the lanterns and the parents attend the parade, as do many of the local townsfolk and the community can get involved in the workshops and join the parade. The Bronze Arts Award children include this as part of their evidence for Part A.
Adapting
Transported continued to deliver projects during the Covid pandemic, finding ways to engage with the arts. At school, the children created posters that were made into large stickers and displayed around Boston shop windows and copies were sent to school. The children were tasked with making their own lanterns which Transported collected and were displayed in the town centre.
Transported continue to run workshops locally including totem maquette making, suncatcher creating and silk painting. All available for the community to take part in.
Impact
So, from questioning whether I could fit in Arts Award, to becoming an Arts Award adviser trained in all levels, running an annual Discover and Bronze programme, I think doing Arts Award was the right thing to do. The children are inspired and because we start with Discover for the whole year group, this helps the children decide if, going forward, they would like to do Bronze Arts Award.
The children who take part in Arts Award have said they enjoy being able to complete most of it during school time. They love visiting the theatre and the excitement of going to another city to enjoy a performance has been motivational. Hopefully the children who have achieved Bronze Arts Award will have opportunities in the future to further develop the skills they’ve gained. Seeing the joy on the children’s faces after a performance is truly priceless.
Photo: By Hawthorn Tree School of lanterns for the Illuminate festival
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