Shining a spotlight on York Theatre Royal; How they’ve adapted to deliver Arts Award at home

This week Outreach Director, Paula Clark, from York Theatre Royal tells us about the theatre’s fantastic Home-Based Arts Award.

York Theatre Royal has been delivering all levels of Arts Award for many years with hundreds and hundreds of young people completing them with us, resulting in the theatre becoming a Trinity Champion Centre 2020-2021. The work is headed up by Kate Veysey, Youth Theatre Director and resident Arts Award expert.

Creativity is at the heart of everything we do, and we don’t want this to stop being the case simply because our building is closed. That’s why we’ve launched Collective Acts, a programme of activities; from projects to help with home schooling, to fun activities to keep the whole family entertained and digital events that will help our wonderful community stay connected keeping the creativity going until we can open our doors once again.

Arts Award felt like a perfect fit at this time. In recognition of the truly exceptional circumstances we are all now living in, we have been adapting delivery of Arts Award so that it can be undertaken from a home setting. Our new guide has been specially designed to be used by children and young people, supported by their parents/guardians, to keep them busy, engaged and inspired by the arts until our theatre reopens. Our parents and young people keep in touch with their Arts Award Adviser via telephone and email, so we have been able to continue to offer support along the way. We have been delighted by the uptake and have also had lots of positive feedback about the guide itself.

"I can’t thank you enough for putting together this excellent package!! It’s great! Totally accessible for parents…!"

"I have had a very good look at the resources and we even planned times and some of the materials we will need. Fantastic job preparing the pack! Thank you."

We’ve been so inspired by the collective acts of kindness happening up and down the country during this unprecedented time, this crisis seems to have brought people together in amazing and creative ways.

You’ll find our guide to completing Discover, Explore and Bronze Arts Awards here, plus links to all the resources you’ll need.

To sign up for our Home-Based Arts Award, email artsaward@yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Let’s get started!