Congratulations to the 11 New Artsmark Schools in Yorkshire & Humber

IVE are delighted to congratulate the 11 new Artsmark schools making 54 schools in Yorkshire & Humber with an Artsmark award. We’d like to thank these schools for their superb work in delivering excellent arts & cultural education for their pupils and working to continually improve the quality of their arts provision.

The newly awarded schools are:

Artsmark Gold

Armthorpe Shaw Wood Academy

Endike Academy

Scawthorpe Castle Hills Primary School

Wood Bank Special School

Woodfield Primary School

Artsmark Silver

Hull Trinity House Academy

John Harrison CofE Primary School

Maybury Primary School

Riverside Special School

Sharp Lane Primary School

Wheeler Primary School

An Artsmark award represents a terrific achievement at any level, demonstrating a commitment to providing high-quality arts and cultural opportunities for all pupils and for working to improve how the arts are taught and viewed in schools.

Pupils at Shaw Wood Academy playing Music

We reached out to Jo Campbell, the Headteacher at Armthorpe Shaw Wood Academy, for her thoughts about achieving the Gold award.

We are incredibly proud to offer a vibrant and exciting curriculum at Shaw Wood and to embrace the arts in all forms to ensure all our children thrive academically, socially and culturally. The journey to Artsmark Gold really gave us the opportunity to consider how to further develop diversity within the arts and, as a result, children and staff have grown in both skill and confidence.  As a result the quality of what we achieve is truly excellent. As a recent and incredibly complimentary letter from the senior tutor at Ingestre House following a Year 4/5 Arts Residential – “Im not sure what it is you’re doing at school but it’s definitely working so please keep it going.”

Woodfield Primary School

Helen Harrison, Head Teacher at Woodfield Primary School, was similarly proud:

At Woodfield Primary School we are very proud to have received the Artsmark Gold award. The Arts has a profoundly positive effect on all our pupils; they thoroughly enjoy being involved in all aspects within school and participating in local projects with specialist artists. The Arts is firmly embedded across the curriculum, thus providing a broad, balanced and enjoyable experience which enables them to gain confidence, develop their skills and personal achievement. We will continue to embrace opportunities across the Arts and work closely with local partnerships to provide rich and diverse opportunities, expertise and experiences for all pupils.

Kate Ranner, Head Teacher at Endike Academy, singled out the accomplishments of their Artsmark lead and the hard work all the staff and pupils put in:

We’re delighted that the Arts Council have awarded Endike Artsmark Gold.  This award is a celebration of the successful 2-year journey and it demonstrates how high quality arts provisions are established within Endike and how they have a positive, measurable effect on the children, staff and parents.

Endike Primary Pipe Dreams

The children have really benefitted from the whole experience, we know that these Enrichment experiences have had a huge impact on the self-confidence and self-esteem of the children. This gold award acknowledges how the art weeks and Flexible Friday sessions that we deliver have opened up child led learning opportunities, how the enrichment programme provided through Dret, broadens the children’s experiences and how through CPD, staff have reflected on their teaching and have increasingly become ‘risk takers’ and have embraced new ways of approaching teaching of the arts. The arts is an increasingly large part of what makes Endike an exciting place to be.

Trina Smallwood, as the leader on the Artsmark journey, is already planning the next steps and is aiming for Platinum next time! #TeamEndike are completely ready to support her!

Castle Hills Primary Artmsark Artwork

Chloe Hodgson, Arts and Curriculum Champion at Castle Hills Primary School is really happy with the  effect the process of getting the award has had on pupils and staff:

We are delighted to have been awarded ‘Artsmark’ gold! We have been fortunate to exceed our expectations that we had envisioned and are now able to offer wider opportunities in all forms of art. All children and staff have had a significant role in the development of art in our school; children’s needs and interests are being planned for – offering children an individual  ‘art award’ in the process. Artsmark has initiated staff to be enthused to develop our provision and this is what we have done!  We are going to continue our art journey and to further exceed our art curriculum.

IVE’s Cultural Education Director, Sarah Mumford, added:

We’re delighted to see more and more schools in Yorkshire & Humber achieving Artsmark. Every award signifies another school that recognises the importance of providing a high-quality arts education and it’s really heart warming to see so many schools that recognise the value of the arts, especially at a time when budgets and time are stretched. The comments from our new Gold Award Heads are particularly cheering as they clearly see first hand how the arts are helping their pupils become happy, healthy, confident and well rounded people.

Artsmark is a creative quality standard that serves as a practical and valuable tool for enriching a school’s arts provision. It has been designed by schools, for schools, to align with School Improvement Plans and give the curriculum breadth and balance.

Artsmark schools make a commitment to providing high-quality arts and cultural opportunities for all pupils. They use the arts to inspire learning and develop happy, successful and confident children and young people.

In Yorkshire and the Humber, they are supported in this objective with guidance and advice from us as their regional bridge organisation and other Artsmark schools through regular networking events. They also receive resources, FREE CPD sessions and access to special offers and discounts from arts organisations.

If you’re interested in joining the Artsmark scheme you can learn more on our Artsmark page. We’ve also compiled a number of case studies of the different benefits Artsmark can have for schools.