This week, Sara Jane Datta, Head of Art at Trinity Champion Centre Alvechurch C of E Middle School shares how she plans delivery of Bronze and Silver as an extra-curricular activity for her pupils each year.
The start of a new year signals the start of my Arts Award programme in school and the beginning of lots of individual creative journeys that my pupils will embark on. Our school is a middle deemed secondary school, and I have run Bronze and Silver Arts Award with Key Stage 3 pupils for over a decade. Whilst my delivery may begin in January, I start preparing well before.
Arts Award is offered as an extra-curricular option at our school, and I encourage individuality from the very start; this is where the benefits of Arts Award are exceptional. One of the most important things I have learnt from being an Arts Award adviser, and supporting hundreds of pupils through their qualifications, is that organisation and preparing for a successful start, is paramount.
Beginning Bronze
I often start selecting pupils for Bronze a couple of years in advance of delivery. As Head of Art, I teach every child in my school, which allows me to identify pupils early on in Key Stage 2 who might benefit from participating in Arts Award when they reach Key Stage 3. This approach also allows me to speak directly with parents in advance to get their insight on whether they feel their child would benefit, how they might engage with the experience and how they as parents might support them at home. Communication with parents is incredibly important as they provide essential encouragement and support, especially for Part B – Explore the arts as an audience member.
The sky’s the limit
Before the main delivery of Arts Award gets under way, I explain thoroughly to pupils the process they will be engaging with. I go through each part in detail and encourage pupils to ask questions and be curious about what they could work on. I really encourage pupils to have a ‘sky’s the limit’ attitude with their plans for what they want to create; the creative journey they go on will benefit hugely from that sort of aspirational attitude. To help focus their initial thoughts and ideas about what they would like to develop during their Arts Award project, I ask pupils to create ideas lists for what they would like to try. I get them to do this on a simple A4 page I have designed which I have divided into the four Bronze parts. This allows pupils to really think about all their options, noting them down so they can be discussed with me when decisions need to be made. Those individual creative conversations are worth their weight in gold, and it starts a dialogue between the pupils and myself as their Arts Award adviser that can be carried on throughout the project and allows purposeful check ins to take place. Pupils therefore benefit from individualised feedback and support, which is especially important if an idea doesn’t take shape or work out as intended. Support to pivot their ideas when needed is essential so they don’t lose motivation and remain focussed.
Starting Silver
Final decisions around selecting suitable pupils for Silver happens a little bit earlier than Bronze. In fact, during the previous cohort of Bronze pupils, I will be gauging the potential of the young people taking part, evaluating as they go through the process to see if they may want to take their Arts Award journey further by moving onto Silver. So that I can support my young people effectively, I usually have a much smaller group working on Silver. They are the pupils that really excelled in the Bronze level and have a true passion for art and creativity.
It is important to emphasise to selected candidates at the start of the process, about the time investment needed for Silver and to make them aware of the commitment they will need to make. Silver offers young people amazing opportunities to develop as artists; their arts challenge, working alongside artists or crafts people when looking at careers and their leadership project offer so many incredible opportunities. But this requires discipline and dedication to see the process through to the end. The arts challenge for Silver Unit 1 Parts A (Plan an arts challenge) and B (Implement and review the arts challenge) encourages them to make effective choices with their plans to ensure the experience has enough breadth and depth.
I usually run separate sessions for Bronze and Silver pupils, having previously worked with them at the same time. The timescales and level of support needed is different and I have found giving dedicated time to each level helps all involved. Pupils can access support from myself, but support from each other as peers is much more effective if they are all working on the same qualification at the same time.
Exemplar portfolios
One of the most valuable resources I have built up over the years in our school are exemplar portfolios from previous pupils. Along with the excellent resources provided by Arts Award, I have found that keeping portfolios from my setting, whether in their original format or as photos or scanned images, really helps pupils visualise the kind of work they can create and the standard they can accomplish. I can also explain some of the creative choices that have taken place within those portfolios as I know the story behind those choices from supporting the young person in question with the decisions that were made at the time.
Once young people have been recruited to take part in Arts Award, decisions have been made and choices confirmed, delivery can begin! It is honestly one of the most rewarding elements of my career; helping young people develop their creativity through Arts Award and opening their eyes a little more to the arts in the world around them is quite a special experience for all involved.
Photo: By Alvechurch C of E Middle School, Alice in Wonderland inspired Silver Arts Award portfolio
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