April 20, 2023 04:23pm
Down to a fine art: All Faiths Children's Academy receives national art award
The children and staff at All Faiths Children’s Academy are rejoicing after receiving the prestigious Artsmark Silver Award. Artsmark is the only creative quality standard for schools and education settings, accredited by Arts Council England. Artsmark supports schools to develop and celebrate arts and cultural education, putting creativity and wellbeing at the heart of the curriculum, as well as ensuring every young person can be creative and access a diverse, high-quality cultural education.
In order to achieve their Artsmark Silver Award, All Faiths had to develop and embed arts and culture into their broad and ambitious curriculum. The school achieved this by creating and committing to an overall plan that was delivered across the whole school. This was recognised in their feedback from the assessors, which stated “The Arts feature in school planning and have continued to be supported by SLT and planned via the (wonderfully named) Thinking Artistically team. There are progression and skills linked curriculums for music and art, including the use of Charanga. Drama is also supported by a staff member with specialist training.”
The Artsmark assessor continued to commend the school for “enabling pupils to access a consistent and relevant range of experiences in school and outside the classroom. […] Your weekly music appreciation sounds lovely, and the school choir performing with BSL and dance at the O2 is great. Staff consider equity, diversity, and inclusion in many aspects of the curriculum, such as your performance of the Tempest with inward and outward signing, and your inclusion of LGBTQ+ and Black History Month topics.”
On receiving the award, Jody Murphy, Director of Education for the school said, “We are extremely proud of the team at All Faiths for achieving the Artsmark Silver Award. The school has worked hard to ensure all of our community has access to the arts in all its forms, committed to delivering a high-quality arts and cultural education. We look forward to moving forward and working towards the next award in the Artsmark journey.”
As part of the assessor’s feedback, the school was provided with guidance and advice on which steps to take to progress on to the next level in the Artsmark Awards. The staff and children look forward to putting this into action and working towards their Gold Award next.
Dr Darren Henley OBE, Chief Executive of the Arts Council, said “I would like to congratulate All Faiths Children’s Academyon their Artsmark Award. Becoming an Artsmark school demonstrates that through offering a broad, ambitious, and creative curriculum, every pupil can develop character and resilience, increasing their knowledge, curiosity, and skills that will remain with them through to adult life.”
Images from our Tempest Exhibition
