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Moving Waves recently became an Arts Award Centre and we are so excited for supporting our young performers and artists as they embark on their Arts Award journeys this year! If you’ve not heard of Arts Award, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. In this blog we’ll explain what Arts Award is and how it is embedded at our Academy in Haringey. If you see Arts Award advertised at a venue near you, we recommend you look at how you can get your kids involved.
“Arts Award is a range of unique qualifications that support children and young people to grow as artists and arts leaders.” – Arts Award
Arts Award is basically a cultural and creative accreditation to formally recognise and certify the amazing artistic work that children and young people achieve. It emphasises the value of creative activity and encourages children and young people to explore what they’re passionate about within the arts. Arts Award launched in 2005 and has since boomed in a variety of environments from schools to community centres to libraries and museums. There are five types of Arts Award Levels (Discover, Explore, Bronze, Silver and Gold) that grow in activity, exploration and creative challenges suitable for different ages from 5-25. The Arts Award framework is unique in that it allows children to develop their individual artistic interests and creative expression. Children are encouraged to have creative input in their activities and to work with artists and arts professionals, such as the creative facilitators, teachers, and performers at Moving Waves. Through setting themselves challenges, children and young people develop creative and critical skills, develop their communication skills and, excitingly, receive a recognised qualification upon successful completion of their award level.
Getting involved in Arts Award is a great way for children to explore a breadth of arts and cultural opportunities, and to acknowledge artworks that exist in their everyday environment and beyond. Children and young people take part in different ways from creating their own work, to performing, operating backstage, to technical, design and promoting (and so much more!!) Arts Award values all types of arts, creative and cultural activities from high art to popular culture and arts of all countries and people. Arts Award is for every child and young person.
Arts Award is managed by Trinity College London in association with Arts Council England, working with 10 regional Bridge organisations. The Bridge organisation for us in London is A New Direction.
Arts Award Discover is the first award that is available to children and young people ages 5-25. It is an introductory level that develops a basic a basic understanding of a range of art forms. Participants take part in arts activities, learn about artists and their work, and develop communication by sharing their discoveries. Throughout the process, children and young people create a personal arts log (portfolio) containing evidence of their experiences. These arts logs can be in any format, including digital. The total qualification time recommended for this award is 20 hours.
The best thing about taking Arts Award Discover with Moving Waves is that most of the assessment areas are already embedded in the weekly classes that our students take! We will arrange additional opportunities for participants to engage with other cultural activities, share their arts journey, and be assessed, but their dance, acting and musical theatre classes all count towards their participation! A child or young person embarking on their Arts Award journey can tailor it towards their specific interests - it’s very person centred and person led.
As an Arts Award Centre we are responsible for the successful delivery of Arts Award. We’ll start by introducing Discover in September, and then will be offering Explore, Bronze, Silver, and Gold in the future, so the children can work through all five levels of certification if they wish!
Each Arts Award Centre has at least one Arts Award Advisor who is responsible for overseeing the delivery of the award and supporting children on their arts journey. I’m delighted to be one of the Arts Award Advisors for Moving Waves and am really looking forward to hearing about the participants creative interests and helping support their personal arts goals! During their Arts Award journeys, I’ll act as a mentor and facilitator and help signpost to cultural opportunities. I’ll also assess the Discover level award submissions (the submissions for the other levels will be sent to Trinity for assessment).
Arts Award is completely accessible for any child or young person to complete (and as I said, I’ll be there to help guide, advise, and ensure they have everything they need before assessment). There’s also no time limit, so no pressure for anyone to complete within a certain time frame, again allowing it to be really personal and about the individual experience and development. It's a wonderful way of acknowledging and seeing the value of what they already do (rather than adding more) and they get to learn about other artists and venues, expanding their experiences within different arts disciplines! Finally, it is very open so rather than participants having to respond to a pre-prescribed rigorous assessment criteria they’ll have freedom to explore their creativity their way – which is simply brilliant!
We definitely recommend checking out anywhere that offers Arts Award near you. If you’re in or near Haringey have a look at our Academy based at Chestnuts Community Centre, N15. Children participating in our weekly classes are eligible to take Arts Award with us too! Finally, for more updates and to see some of our Academy students Arts Award journeys, give us a follow on Instagram.
