Partnership For Excellence – Arts Award in West London Museums

31 July 2014

Orleans House Gallery delivered a project called ‘Partnership for excellence’, where they trained & supported eight West London museums to explore the application of Arts Award in museum settings for projects with a collections focus. The partner museums were the British Postal Museum and Archive, Fulham Palace, Gunnersbury Park Museum, Kingston Museum, London Museum of Water & Steam, Museum of Richmond, Strawberry Hill House and Wandsworth Museum.

107 Young people aged 8 to 21 achieved their Arts Award (33 Explore, 71 Bronze and 3 Silver). There were a wide range of projects and the young people were involved in everything from learning about local Huguenot heritage through joining after school art clubs, creating art work for exhibitions, making films to performing a World War One poetry projectat the Roundhouse. Collectively the museums worked with a wide range of young people, partnering with schools, youth centres and local organisations. Nearly half of the young people we worked with were from targeted or disadvantaged backgrounds– SEN groups, children at risk, Children looked after, disadvantaged children from lower income backgrounds and young carers.

Six of the Arts Council Quality Principles were used to frame the evaluation, including striving for excellence, actively involving children and young people and providing a sense of personal progression. Results showed 100% of participants in projects delivered outside of school settings increased their confidence, agency and resilience. All of the museums involved reported that Arts Award provided them with an excellent framework for their own delivery and impressive outcomes for their audiences and all of them plan to continue offering Arts Award.

Watch our film to find out more

Download our Evaluation report

Download West London Arts Award evaluation report

To find out more about the project please go here or contact Arts Education Manager.

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