Claire Everett, Arts Award adviser and teacher at Cranborne Middle School shares her practical guide on running Arts Award as an extra-curricular activity.
“I launched our Arts Award offer at Cranborne Middle School in 2010. It has always been delivered through the extra-curricular route. Our school already had a vibrant extra curricular provision, particularly in sports and music, so I was looking at providing students with arts projects with a real focus; an outcome. Students at Bronze and Silver plan and deliver their own sessions and lunchtime clubs to younger pupils, some of whom are from Year 5 and completing their Arts Award Explore. They then use these experiences as part of their portfolio. Over the years, I have experimented with different timings, group sizes and methods of delivery and have now settled on an offer that works smoothly, both for my students and me!”
1. How to get started
Do not overload yourself. After I completed my Adviser training in 2010, I decided to select a small pilot group of four students to take through Bronze. The following year, three of them chose to progress to Silver and I took on a larger group of Bronze participants. I learned a lot from that experience and used it to develop my offer in the years that have followed. It is important to be as prepared as possible in advance and to think of all eventualities. Here is a brief checklist:
- Why Arts Award? Consider why you want to run the Arts Award: what do you think it will bring to the students, the wider school and your own CPD?
- Who will undertake it and who will help? Recruitment: what year groups and group size? Who will you need to support you (ideally another Arts Award adviser but a helpful colleague in the arts and/or a Teaching Assistant could be invaluable to bounce ideas off and support you in busy times). Explaining Arts Award in advance to a member of the admin/finance staff is also useful when the time comes to ask for payment and to support you with moderation paperwork.
- What levels will you deliver? One level, all levels or a combination, running concurrently?
- When will you deliver it? Consider your own workload, the timings of various other arts events running during the year. Days of the week and lunch or after school are all decisions that need to be made in advance, after considering the other clubs on offer (clashes could mean that students miss out)
- How long a period of time would you run it for and how will you deliver the sessions? We have found it really successful running it in a fixed period. It has meant that students work more effectively within a tighter time frame and that they can then attend other clubs and commitments when it has finished.
2. How to recruit students (and ensure they stay committed)
Active recruitment is crucial in ensuring that all students (even those who will never undertake an Arts Award) and staff get an opportunity to hear about it. Arts Award, once it is embedded in your school, will carry its own buzz but it is important every year to introduce it in a whole year group assembly.
Here are some further tips:
- Try a presentation to a whole year group assemblies. You will require the whole assembly; not just an ‘announcement.’ This will set out your stall for this high profile new club.
- Use the Arts Award resources, especially the PowerPoint presentation and the school leaflet. These are ready made and very professional PR materials.
- You could put up posters, give out flyers and invite students to a lunchtime meeting to find out more.
- During this meeting, have parental letters photocopied and waiting to give out to interested students. To this letter I would also attach the PowerPoint handout, so parents can read more about the Award and how it will run.
- You could offer a ‘no obligation’ first taster session, where students can opt out, if they feel it is not for them.
- To retain the students, I have found that setting an expectation of 80% minimum attendance at lunch time or after school sessions give students a clear message that they are required to commit but are given the freedom of a couple of sessions ‘off.’
- It is important to foster an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect within the sessions. I inform them that I am not their teacher but their Adviser and therefore I will not invoke the behaviour policy of the school for missing deadlines, for example. I also do not ‘mark’ their work - all this has been very liberating for all concerned!
3. How to explain/convince SLT that Arts Award is worthwhile running as an extra-curricular activity
Give them the same presentation as you intend giving to the students and staff. There are lots of useful case studies on the Arts Award blog that you could refer to, and the Arts Award Impact Study, to help support this.
- Arts Award is a portfolio led, nationally recognised qualification in the arts for young people aged 5-25 and it has a tried and tested history of being able to be delivered as part of an enrichment or extra-curricular programme of activities.
- Have clear plans for how you intend to deliver and fund Arts Award.
- Inform them of how it will weave into the current arts provision you have, eg: students can use their existing clubs and/or upcoming performances.
- SLT will want to know whether you think you can handle the added workload. Think about how you will answer this question by carefully considering all the answers to question 1.
For more advice about running Arts Award as an extra-curricular activity read Part 2 of this guide.