Making the case for the arts in museum and heritage settings

Over the past year we have been working closely with a range of museum and heritage professionals to design a brand-new leaflet shouting about all the great Arts Award achievements you can undertake in museum or heritage settings.

Through focus groups and interviews with members of GEM (Group for Educators in Museums) we’ve crafted what we believe is a handy booklet for anyone thinking about offering Arts Award at a heritage or museum site. The leaflet shines a light on some of the great work museums and heritage sites have done including for example, a project in Stirling which turned the whole town into Arts Award inspiration. We also wanted to showcase the wide range of careers and job roles that exist in museums and heritage based settings, encouraging young people to think about these as they progress through their Arts Award journey. Many people don’t realise that curators, interpreters, collectors and makers are all artists in our eyes, and therefore valid people to find out about at all levels of Arts Award.

We’re also excited to have had the support of high profile museum and heritage partners like GEM, Kids in Museums and Historic Royal Palaces for this leaflet. Our partnership with GEM continues to go from strength to strength and we look forward to developing this relationship. Kids in Museums have been a long-standing Arts Award partner, and we highly recommend you take a look at their excellent case study and resource bank including why museums should do Arts Award and how to use it alongside Takeover Day. Our partnership with Historic Royal Palaces (HRP) has also really developed over the past 18 months, looking at how visits can contribute across the curriculum, not just to history. Our recent CPD session at Hampton Court was a sell-out and we are looking forward to repeating this next year (watch this space for booking information).

Arts Award has been championing arts delivery across museum and heritage settings for a while now. As part of one of our partnerships we worked with Kensington Palace to link Bronze Arts Award to a new KS3 literacy session, by looking at Queen Victoria’s childhood at the palace. Through interactive sessions in the palace students are inspired to put themselves in Victoria’s shoes, providing excellent inspiration for creative writing and creative responses - perfect for Bronze Part A. Visiting the new exhibition about Victoria’s childhood sheds new light on her as an artist as well as a Queen to be. And don’t forget that visiting any of the HRP sites counts as an arts audience experience for Explore and Bronze Part B.

For older students, Kensington will also be launching a really exciting study day focusing on Historic Royal Fashion. Developed for KS5 Art & Design or Textiles students, this hands-on experience will explore historic dress as well as giving the students the opportunity to make their own garments supervised by expert period costumiers – a fantastic addition to any Arts Award Silver or Gold project. And what’s more, we’ll be running an exclusive free CPD session at Kensington on October 15th (booking opens in September). Find out more about Kensington Palace’s new sessions here.

Download our leaflet today to discover the huge range of opportunities which look to explore the arts through museum and heritage sites. Arts Award can provide a great framework to develop this strand of your learning programme. If you are a museum, heritage site, gallery or arts organisation, contact Arts and Cultural Associate Caroline Bray to find out how to embed Arts Award into what you do.