Focus on Bronze Part B

After previously exploring Part A, here, in the second blog in our series focusing on how to deliver Bronze, we turn our attention to Bronze Part B ‘Explore the arts as an audience member’. In this blog we will explore suitable events, writing reflections, and how these can be shared, making this a useful blog for any adviser planning Part B.

What’s at the heart of the part?

Bronze Part B is about young people experiencing the arts as an audience member at an arts event, reflecting on their experience, and sharing their reflections with others. Arts experiences can be in any art form. For example, they could go to an exhibition or a gig; see a play or performance; take part in a backstage tour or experience an online event. Young people can also attend screenings of films, exhibitions of artwork, or performances produced by their peers.

In order to fulfil the criteria for this part you will need to consider:

• How you enable students to access arts events
• How you support and guide them to reflect on their experience and record their thoughts
• How you enable your students to share their reflections with others and provide evidence of this happening.

Attendance at an arts experience needs to be evidenced, for example, by including a copy of a ticket, flyer or programme, or a photo of the young person at the event.

Finding events or experiences

Part B events do not necessarily need to be in person, we know sometimes it can be difficult or costly to take young people out on trips, but there is a wealth of opportunities online for example:

• National Theatre Collection
• RSC Schools Broadcasts
• BBC Ten Pieces
• National Gallery virtual gallery. You could share this simple guide on how to read a painting with your students to help them get started when considering individual pieces.
• Google Arts and Culture
• Into Film clubs are free to state funded schools and non school settings such as libraries and youth clubs and give access to a huge range of films.

And don’t forget about Arts Award Supporter organisations. Arts Award Supporters are organisations who offer events, activities and opportunities which help young people achieve Arts Awards.

Reflecting on an arts event

Young people can reflect on an arts event by producing a review. It’s really important that young people focus their review on the creative impact and content of the arts experience.

For example, they might talk about the exhibition curation, artist’s technique, music composition, special effects, set design or costume. The following resources provide some guidance on reviewing an event. Remember to always use the Arts Award toolkit when briefing young people to ensure that their reviews meet the Bronze assessment criteria.

How to write an online review

How to write a review of an event

Encourage students to consider different review styles from local press, online review sites and book clubs. This will introduce them to relevant and art form specific critical vocabulary and inform how they create their own response drawing on the formats they have researched. For example, Time Out reviews exhibitions and arts events in cities around the world, or you can download podcasts from Radio 4’s Front Row to hear discussions and reviews about a range of cultural events and exhibitions.

Sharing reflections

Young people’s Part B reviews can be shared with others in a range of ways. Here are some ideas:

• Arts Award Voice is Arts Award’s youth website where young people can post their reviews and get feedback from others via comments on their post. They could also publish reviews in a school newsletter or post them on a notice board
• Group discussion: facilitate a group discussion for young people to share their opinions on what they have seen. You can structure this by posing open questions to each group member based on their written review, and then encouraging discussion between group members based on any similar opinions or different perspectives.
• Presentation: young people could present their review by reading it out or talking through the main points and then open up to their audience for questions.
• Record any class-based discussions that take place about the chosen work/s as you study (you could use film or record student thoughts on an interactive board and print for each portfolio)
• Present individual written responses or reviews by your students (completed in class time or set for homework). Show how they have been shared, perhaps with staff or other students, who have left a comment in response
• Develop speaking and listening skills by encouraging students to interview each other about the piece and record responses using audio, written or filmed techniques. Perhaps they could film a news report or interviews as they leave the event, mimicking a red carpet event.

Please remember that there always needs to be evidence of the young people sharing their reviews.

Cross-curricular work

Do you have a chosen English language text that you study as a class? Do you study groups of visual artists or individual schools of work? Are there professional performance pieces, individual composers, choreographers or dramatic styles you build your schemes of work around?

A cultural event can provide opportunities to embed humanities and sciences into this part for example: the Olympic Games opening ceremonies, an event or show that commemorates an important anniversary, or a special exhibition of significant geological or historical artefacts.

Encourage students to reflect on these cultural events and how the use of the arts provides a new perspective or ‘way in’ to the chosen subject. Remember to focus their reflections on the creative impact of the work experienced and how it develops global, historical or scientific awareness/learning. Encourage students to think about how the arts event or the exhibition has enabled them to see and understand subjects in a new way.

You may already have trips and visits planned for students throughout the school year across different subjects, consider whether there may be opportunities to use this trip towards Part B. By building in and recording some reflection time back in the classroom or at the venue itself, you will be able to incorporate Part B requirements on the day or shortly afterwards.

Taking it to the next level

You may like to extend the student experience by challenging them to create an art work of their own, informed by and inspired by the event or works studied, for example:

• a poem or story inspired by the play you have seen
• a choreographed dance or series of movements in response to a piece of music
• a painting inspired by film

These could be shared on a class display, school blog or newsletter.

Support Resources

The following resources could help with your Bronze delivery or planning:

Portfolio building templates

Evidence checklist

Bronze Activity mapping resource

Five day Bronze

We hope that you found this blog helpful, and remember to keep an eye out for the next blog in this series, where we will look at Part C in more detail.