Arts Award Day - Don't Loose Hope

I thought I would share with you all about the Arts Award day that was organised within my department to deliver to years 3 and 4 at school. Now I know that some of you will be a little frustrated with how "The Arts" appears to be forgotten withing education and general schooling, however I am extremely lucky to work in a school where the head is very for the arts and actively encourages students to get involved whether is be music, dance, art etc. So this is also just to say don't give up hope! there are people out there who love what we do and support us 100%

For those of you who haven't heard about the Arts Award program here is a little back ground information. I will also put the link to the website if anyone is interested in looking into this further. So it is run by Trinity College London and is an accredited qualification and can be started at the age of 6 and can continue until 25 with the highest qualification Gold earning students 35 UCAS points for university. More information can be found here - http://www.artsaward.org.uk/site/?id=64

Anyway with years 3 and 4 we ran the Discover day. Students were off their academic time table for the day to take part in a rang of activities: Dance, Drama, Photography and Collections. Students had an hour on each section. (30-40 mins activity time 10 - 20 mins reflection time) I could ramble for hours about the day, but just a brief out line of what we looked at;

Dance - National following outlines of the ISTD syllabus looking at Austrian dancing and also looking into the clothes they wear etc.

Drama - Freeze frames, making pictures and key drama words that they will need to know through school (Drama is a compulsory subject for the prep school)

Photography - Students met a photographer and asked her questions and looked at the best way of framing a picture to take a photo. This was done outside in the woods.

Collections - Walking around school and see what art work is in the building and see if they find any of it inspirational.

For the students to record their work, I made each of them a work book which I will post some pictures of a blank one below to give you an idea.

Each and every students came away from this day have enjoyed what they had done, yes some activities more than others, but they all said that they had a fun day taking part in the arts activities. I am also pleased to say that each students work passed the moderation which is amazing! - but it does make me unhappy that events like this are so few in schools.

Like I said, I am very lucky to have such a supportive head so please don't give up hope. If anyone wants any more information on how this works in my school then please do comment below or if anyone has their own experiences with this program I'd love to hear about them!

  Hope you enjoy reading this post! :)