Achievements

Silver Artsmark

Lindsworth School has been awarded the prestigious Arts Council England Artsmark Silver Award for the first time, in November 2019. Managed by Arts Council England, Artsmark is a national award scheme which recognises schools with a high provision in the arts. The scheme encourages schools to consider the opportunities they offer within the Arts. By gaining an Artsmark, a school shows its commitment to the wider development of young people and teachers and to raising the profile of the arts in the school and the local community.

We are delighted that the Arts Council continues to recognise Lindsworth School’s stimulating and exciting arts curriculum. Our Statement of Commitment and follow up Case Study/Statement of Impact was worthy of a Silver Award for a number of reasons.

The Arts Council’s comments were as follows:

“Congratulations on a positive start to your Artsmark journey! Lindsworth School is steadily increasing the emphasis on arts and culture, and engaging with the Arts is clearly having tangible results on pupils, and wider staff teaching and learning. Projects with the Crafts Council around metalwork have fostered really positive outcomes in terms of pupil behaviour, concentration and attainment. This has led to an increase in uptake of arts-based subjects and requests for more coming through pupil voice activities. It is really good to hear about KS3 doing Arts Award. Working alongside artists from the Crafts Council has also supported staff development too. As you have seen the impact one, limited programme can have, what would happen if you increased this for the future? Staff confidence has been further been raised by internal CPD support from the specialist art teacher, and the newly employed art technician.”

As part of progressing our Artsmark journey into GOLD we have been advised to, “continue to develop your curriculum, it will be important to build strong, long term relationships with arts and cultural partners who could work directly with pupils, but also provide CPD for all staff, and help staff plan to embed authentic artistic experiences throughout the curriculum. Pupils are visiting arts venues and having arts and cultural experiences in school, but working jointly with arts organisations on staff CPD, and in planning and developing the curriculum together will foster the strongest results in terms of relationships and pupil outcomes. Investigating local Artsmark Partners might help with this. To gather the momentum for this and embed the Arts strategically within the school, SLT may wish to consider co-opting a governor from an arts organisation.”

Staying on our Artsmark journey will help us explore new objectives and further enhance our arts and cultural provision. It will equip pupils with the cultural capital they need to succeed in life and nurture their imagination and creativity through a high-quality arts and cultural education.

It is our aim to continue to develop our arts provision and extend the effects and influence of our Artsmark engagement further through activities, experiences and CPD that benefit both pupils and teachers in tangible ways. Furthermore, as we reflect on our practice over time and cement our partnerships with arts organisations and other providers we aim to develop the school’s capacity to champion this approach to education and share our experiences more widely.

The Artsmark Award demonstrates Lindsworth School’s strong commitment to the arts. It also acknowledges the importance of students given the opportunity to gain a qualification for the arts at key stage 3. The arts are very important to us at Lindsworth School and we shall continue to work within the Artsmark scheme to help us develop our provision further.