Embedding Arts Award in the curriculum year-round

To kick off our ‘Arts Award in Schools’ theme on the blog throughout September, Claire Bannister, a teacher from Appledore School in Devon shares with us how they embed Arts Award in their curriculum all year round…

The arts have always been at the centre of our curriculum and we have a purpose-built art studio which is used by all of our children. We believe that the arts are an important part of the National Curriculum. Some of our pupils find reading, writing or maths hard but excel in the arts. This gives us a chance as a school to celebrate these achievements with the children. A number of our pupils use the arts to be creative which helps them with their writing and for some children it is a way of de-stressing. Our art studio allows the children to explore a range of art forms including drawing, painting, printing, sculpture and textiles which includes the use of a sewing machine.

We decided to deliver Arts Award as we felt that the children were already meeting the requirements of the Award through our curriculum, and we wanted to give them formal recognition of their achievements and celebrate this. We deliver Arts Award Discover with our Year 1 children and Arts Award Explore with our Year 5 children.

Arts Award is embedded into our curriculum, so it doesn’t feel like additional work for the teachers. We make sure that Arts Award is part of the curriculum throughout the whole school year, so that the children can see their progression. This also helps the teachers to plan their work and not feel pressured during one particular term to deliver Arts Award. Our arts curriculum is planned so that the children focus on one art form a term and we make sure that the Arts Award structure is included in this planning.

We believe that it’s important for our children to have a rich, sensory experience of the arts, so we expose them to as many art forms as we can; including painting, drawing, printing, sculpture, textiles and collage (Discover Part A and Explore Part A - Take part). The children use a story based on dragons from their Literacy sessions as a stimulus to create a sculpture. They design and create a dragon hatching out of an egg using clay (Explore Part C – Create).

In addition to delivering Arts Award in school, we take advantage of what is happening in our local community. Our Year 5 children take part in the annual county children’s music festival, The Mix where there are live music performances and interactive workshops. Living in a rural part of the country, our children do not have exposure to a lot of live music. This festival allows them to see different kinds of instruments being played and singers from many different cultures. This year our pupils took part in a Taiko drumming workshop (Discover Part A and Explore Part A - Take part). They also took part in a mixing desk workshop where they used specialised mixing equipment to create music.

Once back in school the children critique their day. We also set homework for them where they choose an artist they want to find out about (Discover and Explore Part B). They can choose a contemporary artist or one from the past, in any art form. The children research the artists’ lives, their art form and their inspirations. In addition, they also write about their own interests in the particular artist.

When our pupils have finished their Arts Award Discover or Explore, we have an open afternoon where parents can come into school and look at all of the work that’s been created throughout the year. We ask the parents to critique the work and this contributes towards the Discover Part C and Explore Part D portfolio evidence. The children always love to hear the critiques, and you can see how proud they are when they talk to their parents about their journey in the arts. The parents write about the piece of art work that they found particularly interesting and why. They also comment on the piece of work that they think the children had to work really hard at and overcome any difficulties.

Our pupils enjoy doing Arts Award and they are very proud of themselves when they receive their certificate.

Take a look at our free School Resource Pack which will support you with further ideas on how to effectively deliver Arts Award in your school.

All photos by Appledore School:

Top: screen printing

Bottom: Final clay dragons hatching out of an egg