Top Tips for Delivery Arts Award in Primary School

11 December 2024

Arts Award’s flexible and adaptable framework makes it a great tool for bringing more arts practice into schools, supporting students to develop in independent learning, reflection, confidence and communication. The structure can be easily scaffolded to ensure that all succeed making it great for giving extra-curricular clubs more rigor, raising the profile of the arts in your school and developing pupil voice.

Can you describe your Arts Award project?

We wanted to start delivering Arts Award with a small group so we could get familiar with the process. Working with another teacher, we set up an after school making club for children in Year 5 and Year 6, pupil premium children were invited to join.

Using ‘Yinka’s Challenge’ run by the Crafts Council with the arts award framework enabled our group to become a community of makers who took the lead in their learning through making. As teachers we wanted to work in an open-ended way, learning through doing and exploring a variety of design and craft techniques. In turn, working in this way encouraged the children to develop their voice, work with others across year groups and classes, share ideas and knowledge and let the making lead the direction of the project.

Making things builds resilience; risks need to be taken, mistakes need to be made and the possibilities of the unexpected explored while trying again bonded pupils together as makers. Following a ‘make-first’ pedagogy advocated by the Crafts Council encouraged the group to create in a playful and resourceful way and that quickly allowed children to stretch their imagination, test and demonstrate ideas with their hands and build confidence in the process.

As our school is close to the Design Museum, we visited Yinka Ilori’s exhibition there to spark ideas and enrich the research element of the arts award.

Inspired by the way Yinka Ilori uses colour and pattern to create joy in communal spaces, children decided to design seating for use in the school shared space by making fabric and textiles that could be sewn into a beanbag cushion for the library. They became absorbed in making. The share and reflect element of arts award mirrors curriculum art topics in structure and empowers children to authentically seek the view of others.

How has Arts Award been beneficial for your students?

Not only has the project been enjoyable and a chance to work and learn through making but children have developed attributes which contribute to their well-being, including working with others, taking risks and testing ideas whilst also dealing with failure and being able to respond to discoveries and adapting ideas as their knowledge grows. Many decided to take up crafts as a hobby. The children are proud of their product and are able to contribute positively to their school environment by making something that will be used by their peers.

One of the things we loved about Arts Award was the inclusivity and multiple ways to record and evidence. We were encouraged by the discover element of Arts Award to test more than one art and craft technique. While working in an open-ended way caused a little uncertainty at first, when children had a chance to make mistakes and develop their understanding and experience, a buzz of making spread around the art room

Creating an individual portfolio gave pupils time to reflect on the creative process and their responses to the art and activities. The children’s pride in their achievement is recognised by the award by getting a smart certificate however the authenticity that the award encourages emphasises that it is ‘the taking part that counts!’

What challenges did you face during your arts award, and how did you overcome them?

Craft making takes time and children often found themselves deep in the flow of making when the time for the club to end came. It was great that children were inspired and committed to take materials home and improve their techniques at home e.g. weaving and plaiting so they could enjoy and relax with their making.

The fact that we didn’t have very long in each session encouraged children to dive in and learn quickly through doing. They communicated with each other through demonstration and making or testing. This was empowering and fostered strong teamwork and equal participation across the group. Pupils were also able to continue their work at home and this helped them explore the wellbeing benefits of crafts in their own time.

We had one session to create the evidence portfolio and a follow up session to follow up which wasn’t much time. We also used a portfolio framework posted to our online learning classroom. This meant pupils could gather their evidence for the three areas of the Discover award and respond to feedback out of sessions to improve their work.

What are three tips you would offer for anyone delivering Arts Award for the first time?

1. Link the Arts Award to a visiting artist, something happening in school or an outside initiative like Yinka’s challenge.
2. Consider creating an online template or checklist to support children to compile their portfolio of evidence. This will help make sure that everything is included and in one place. Our children were keen to be creative and personalise their individual portfolios as they made them all different but it included photos of making, scans of drawings, videos of interviews etc.
3. That said, be driven by the richness and enjoyment of the artforms rather than the template! Taking part in arts activities and getting into a creative flow, making mistakes freely and using these to communicate and inform choice has been empowering and confidence boosting. Noticing creative confidence growing in our children through the sessions has been just as rewarding as seeing the children’s pleasure, pride and satisfaction in the end product and sharing it with their school.

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