Thelwall Community Junior School

Artsmark Award 2023 - 2025     

Thelwall Community Junior School

Below is the statement for the Arts Council regarding our recent submission regarding the Arts in this school:

Thank you for your recent submission, and congratulations on completing your Artsmark journey.

You've achieved an Artsmark Gold Award!

We are delighted to inform you that your setting has been awarded an Artsmark Gold Award. Congratulations!

Your Statement of Commitment and Statement of Impact have been assessed and we’re pleased to share this feedback from our assessors with you:

'School leaders, staff and governors are clearly committed to offering a rich arts curriculum at Thelwall Community Junior School, and are seeing the positive effects on pupil engagement, enjoyment and confidence. Despite the challenges that Covid presented during your Artsmark journey, you have reviewed and adapted your arts curriculum to maintain your firm commitment to promoting arts and culture within your setting, and to increasing the cultural capital of your students through opportunities to work with colleagues in other school settings and arts practitioners via your partnership with the Warrington Performing Arts Network. Pupils enjoy regular opportunities to showcase their work in productions, assemblies, recitals (such as Rocksteady), competitions and in performances, such as Young Voices and the Lymm Festival; raising the profile of the Arts with parents, carers and the local community. You have strengthened your music provision and increased teacher confidence with access to training and resources on Charanga, and you capitalised on the professional musical talents of your parents during the pandemic school closures, boosting children’s interest in singing and engagement in your two choirs. Did your plans to collaborate with your local music hub come to fruition? Going forward, might they be able to support you in increasing children’s participation in instrumental tuition? It’s great to hear you have started to consider diversity in and through the Arts, and that you have started to celebrate Black History Month. A next step might be to extend this work so that your whole curriculum reflects modern Britain and its cultural diversity so that pupils are introduced to a wide range of artists, musicians and cultural traditions throughout the year. Dedicated staff meeting time and internal CPD has helped to upskill staff in arts pedagogy, and the rolling-out of your child-friendly assessment tool has helped pupils to self-assess their learning in the Arts. You have made a positive start to garnering the views of your children about your arts provision through your Arts Council. In the future, how might you develop this role? How else could you give them influence over their arts learning within your setting? Could they be involved at a deeper level in planning and delivering authentic arts and cultural experiences, and choosing professional partners, with your linked governor as part of the group to help explore the suggestions put forward and to support the school’s arts work at a strategic and financial leadership level? How might you involve them in advocating for the Arts beyond your own school setting? Additionally, to strengthen your work at Gold, we recommend that you embed your current cultural collaborations with local creative practitioners, arts and cultural organisations and continue to seek out new opportunities for alliances. This could help you to increase your range of offer and provide further external, specialist training opportunities for your staff. You could also investigate some of the national arts organisations who offer free, virtual CPD and resources. You have strengthened your partnerships with local schools through meetings, workshops and sharing of good practice in preparation for arts subject ‘deep dives’. Are there ways in which you could formally embed and further develop these burgeoning relationships with other schools, start to take a lead on advocating for the Arts beyond your own setting and provide evidence of the effects of your work? We look forward to hearing how you continue to build on your current successes.'

Congratulations on your Artsmark Gold Award!

Your award is valid for two years and will expire on 16/08/2025

Once again, congratulations on your Artsmark Gold Award.

With warm wishes,

Artsmark
Arts Council England