At Gomersal Primary school we pride ourselves on offering a vibrant creative arts curriculum, with the firm belief that children’s ideas should be at the very heart of their learning and our curriculum offer. After conducting an audit as part of our Artsmark journey, we decided to set up a pupil led Arts Council, to harness the ideas of all the children within school.
The primary aim was to gather a group of like-minded children to enhance our arts provision, but over the past 3 years, we’ve achieved so much more. Our children have gained the most wonderful experiences, grasped opportunities and have developed into true ambassadors, who eloquently champion the Arts.
At the time we set up our arts council, we were discussing different careers within the arts sectors. With this in mind (unlike our elected school council) we decided to set up the arts council as a job that the children could apply for. We created a job description and pupils in Year 5 and 6 were encouraged to write letters of application, discussing their strengths, ideas and why they wanted to apply for a role. In that first year, we had 14 applications, all from girls and all were appointed. Perhaps this was a sign that our boys were reluctant to write letters and something which we considered in subsequent years.
Our first task was to set up a link with a local arts organisation. We visited the offices of The Arts Council Collection, in the grounds of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
Visiting the Longside Gallery based at the YSP enabled us to learn about Jann Howarth’s Calendula’s Cloak. At the time, we were discussing artwork created by women and why we are able to quickly name many male artists but not as many female artists. The ACC gave us a large selection of sculptures made by female artists and we were asked to choose one piece that we’d like to see and work with. We interviewed Jann Howarth and were able to ask her many interesting questions about her work. We were given funding by Culture Street to create our video to promote working with sculpture in school.
Further to this, Natalie Walton from the Arts Council Collection came to our school with Antony Gormley’s ‘Field for the British Isles’ to introduce our children to a piece of art and to give them further knowledge of how the ACC acquire, exhibit and look after artworks. The emphasis is that the Arts Council Collection is everyone’s collection and so the art belongs to everyone. Our first group of Arts Council children were lucky enough to go behind the scenes at the Arts Council Collection and see the sculptures in storage. These children managed to see some of the sculptures brought into school. They then learnt about the sculpture, had a go at making some out of clay and then shared their experience with the rest of children in school.
The ACC asked us to produce a promotional video for them to show how they work behind the scenes. This linked to an exhibition they were hosting at the time (which we had helped create the education packs for). We interviewed staff, found out about life working for the Arts Council Collection, worked in their gallery space and generally found out about working in the arts sector.
Making the film taught our arts council children about interviewing, researching and teambuilding, when preparing to make the video. They were also taught how to use all the equipment such as videography, using microphones, etc. This was our first major project as a school arts council, so it helped to knit our children together as a team, but also served to ‘set the bar’ for what we might do as a council in the future. This greatly helped raise the number children wanting to apply for a place in the second year.
The children used the knowledge gained from the experience working with the Arts Council Collection to talk to other children back in school. Since then our children have written education packs to run alongside the Arts Council Collection gallery exhibitions and have formed a strong bond with staff there. This helps enormously when our children want to find out about a range of artists to discuss and embed into our art curriculum.
In the first year, our arts council team also created four suggestion boxes, each to represent the four arts subjects within school: visual art, music, dance and performing arts. The children were then divided into small subgroups, to work with the staff responsible for these subjects within school. They collected ideas from children around school that were then discussed in meetings. Any interesting ideas were then passed on to the relevant subject leaders and placed in our meeting minutes book. It’s a wonderful way to find out what all children think about our arts curriculum and how they would like to improve it. During the first few months, the children also worked with a local graphic designer to create and produce a logo and brand identity for our arts council. This further developed their knowledge of careers within the arts sector.
The first year was a success and our arts council children regularly spoke in whole school assemblies, sharing their achievements. This lead to over 60 applicants (this time with an equal weighting of boys) wanting a place on the arts council in the second year. We continued to develop children’s ideas through the suggestion boxes.
With a link made with our school Arts Governor (who also happens to be a radio DJ), we began fundraising to build a recording studio and radio station for use in school. This has been a wonderful project, teaching our arts council children many skills. The children bought a badge making machine, and set up their own small business in school. They set up their own stalls at our Winter and Summer fairs and sold badges and other handmade products and ran raffles throughout the year.
To date, they have singlehandedly raised over £1000. They are in charge of their own budget and regularly discuss how they would like to invest their money back into school in order to improve the arts subjects. Money has been spent on radio equipment, books and iPads, with a contingency always left in their account. They’re frugal and wise when it comes to spending and finance discussions often form a large part of our meetings.
A highlight of our second year, was receiving an invitation to make a speech in the Houses of Parliament. Our children spoke passionately about their experience in primary education and how they felt that the arts subjects are often overlooked or squeezed out of the curriculum. Throughout this process our arts council children developed a strong link with our local MP, who regularly helps to champion the arts, both within our school and in Parliament. It strengthened our children’s belief that what they were doing within school, to improve the art subjects, can make a positive impact on the people around them.
The NSEAD noticed what we were achieving as an arts council (mainly due to our twitter feed and visit to the houses of parliament) They wanted us to write an article to be placed in their AD magazine to promote the use of children’s voice in schools and how this might be used to form an arts council. All our arts council children were given a copy of the magazine as a memento of their year on the arts council and their visit to London.
Due to our strong links with the NSEAD we were invited to run a workshop for their national conference. The aim was to share our arts practice and links with the Arts Council Collection, with teachers from all over the country. Our children planned their own workshop, choosing clay as a focus as we knew that Keith Brymer Jones (from The Great Pottery Throwdown) was the keynote speaker for the day!
Our arts council children decided what they wanted to share and produce a range of creative activities that delegates could take part in, whilst our children talked to them about our art curriculum and answered any questions they had about our school and how we have formed a link with the Arts Council Collection. We took along samples of our sketchbooks and work and put together a powerpoint presentation. Natalie Walton from the Arts Council Collection came too, to talk about our strong links with them and how we work together to enhance our arts curriculum. The children were delighted to meet Keith and sat attentively through his keynote speech.
Each year, our arts council goes from strength to strength, grasping new opportunities wherever it can. We have over 80 applicants each year, from children who want to make a positive impact on learning in school. We have worked with local artists to develop new schemes of work, we’ve led workshops for local children and for teachers at a national conference. Our radio station and recording studio is complete and our arts councillors are currently busy training other children how to use the equipment. We have worked with famous artists and artworks to develop our knowledge and understanding. To enhance our provision we now have 16 iPads for use in our art room, and the fundraising continues. It’s a pleasure to work with such passionate children.
The arts council at Gomersal is now a firmly embedded initiative within our school that I hope will continue for as long as children show an interest in being part of one. They genuinely make a positive contribution, from helping to choose art equipment to speaking in Parliament. It’s important to continue to harness their passion and enthusiasm and long may it continue.