Making the most of the BBC to achieve an Arts Award

BY: Annabel Thomas
30 May 2020

Arts Award has had a long partnership with BBC 10 Pieces, with a yearly discount for all Arts Awards completed using 10 Pieces as the main focus or inspiration of projects, and celebrating 10 Pieces Day with centres across the country. With the new and improved BBC Bitesize now live, and the amazing BBC Teach – as well as BBC Introducing and other programmes such as Young Reporter (formerly School Report) and 500 Words, there is so much inspiration for anyone completing an Arts Award – whether at home during school closures, or in more usual times.

BBC 10 Pieces
Ten Pieces is an exciting initiative for schools, led by BBC Learning, BBC Music and the BBC Orchestras and Choirs, focusing on classical music and creativity. Ten Pieces aims to open up the world of classical music to a generation of children and inspire them to develop their own creative responses to the pieces through a range of art forms. For each piece you can find an exciting range of free teaching resources including short video introductions, six weeks’ worth of lesson plans, instrumental and vocal arrangements as well as video masterclasses to inspire students to get creative with classical music. Our existing resources support planning and delivery using the 10 Pieces, and Arts Award is a fantastic way to recognise the creativity and engagement of students through the Ten Pieces project, giving them a great sense of achievement at the end of the process - and an added opportunity for schools to celebrate. BBC Ten Pieces challenges young people to respond creatively using composition, digital art forms, dance, and performance poetry which fits well with Arts Award. The three Ten Pieces stages - inspiration, exploration & creativity, and presentation and performance work well with all five Arts Award levels from Discover to Gold.

BBC Bitesize

BBC Bitesize has always been an invaluable online resource for all key stages, and they have been especially impressive in their response to Covid-19. Not only will there be daily lessons from Monday 20 April 2020 for a period of 12 weeks, the existing resources are hugely useful to anyone completing an Arts Award. Of special note are the newly released resources for GCSE Drama, with comprehensive revision and test guides – excellent for any student of the subject, regardless of the status of exams! We also recommend their KS3 Music, Art & Design and Media Studies resources – all of which can be useful for any level of Arts Award. For KS3 music, topics include How to write a song, How to rap and Percussion. Bitesize has also teamed up with Ten Pieces to create five companion guides. don’t forget to also take a look at our KS3 guide for linking Arts Award to the curriculum. For Primary aged children, there are similarly excellent Bitesize resources, especially for Music.

BBC Teach

BBC Teach takes the Bitesize content one step further, providing free curriculum-mapped videos, arranged by age-group and subject. There’s advice for home learning for teachers and parents, as well as more curated content for subjects. Primary schools have bespoke support around radio broadcast, and Bring the Noise is a great primary music site – even for non-specialists. There is partner content exploring things like Harry Potter, as well as excellent content for careers inspiration as well as skills development and wider arts industry resources.

BBC Young Reporter

BBC Young Reporter (formerly BBC School Report) is the BBC’s journalism and media project encouraging young people aged 11-18 to share their stories and get their voices heard. It's open to schools, colleges, home schools, youth organisations and community groups in the UK. Many people don’t realise that journalism or broadcast can count towards an Arts Award but it absolutely can! In these times with many young people at home, journalism and investigating the issues that matter to them are even more important, and this can be a great way to keep them engaged with each other during school closures. You may also want to look at VoiceMag for more inspiration and guidance around broadcast reporting, such as their interview with BBC Radio 4 presenter Libby Purves.

500 words

500 Words is BBC Radio 2’s short story competition for young people aged 5-13. With over 110, 000 entries in 2019 it is a hugely popular programme encouraging creative writing and imagination. As well as being a great Arts Award Explore Part C, or Bronze Arts Award Part A (for young people aged 11+), 500 Words is a great way to tie your English teaching to Arts Award. As with all BBC resources, there are lots of teaching and learning resources for you to use for free to help shape your programme.

As you can see, there is a huge range of materials from the BBC which can be used to support your Arts Award delivery. If you complete an Arts Award programme based on BBC 10 Pieces, don’t forget to use your special discount code!