Artsmark Gold Award
Monday 11th March 2024
St Michael and St John’s RC Primary School receives prestigious Artsmark Award
Pupils and staff at St Michael and St John’s RC Primary School are celebrating after receiving a prestigious Gold Artsmark Award.
Artsmark is the only creative quality standard for schools, accredited by Arts Council England. It supports them to develop and celebrate arts and cultural education across the whole curriculum, bringing learning to life for children and young people.
To achieve their Artsmark Award, St Michael and St John’s RC Primary School had to develop their arts and cultural provision to embed a broad and ambitious curriculum. This was achieved by creating an overall plan that was committed to and delivered across the whole school.
St Michael and St John’s RC Primary School received professional support and training throughout their two years and developed partnerships with The Platform Galley and Bev Chaplehow.
'You have used this Artsmark journey to raise the quality of art teaching. To achieve this you have employed a number of strategies which have proved to be successful. For example, the art curriculum has been reviewed and has an embedded scheme of work that develops progression of knowledge, skills and understanding of art. Plans are reviewed and revised to meet the children’s needs such as in the case when gaps in children’s knowledge in art were identified due to Covid. CPD is highly valued and recognised as being an essential ingredient in quality arts and cultural provision. Your collaboration with local artists and creative practitioners to develop staff’s knowledge, skills and understanding has had a positive impact on your arts offer. Staff have become increasingly confident in their teaching of art, in fact so much so that they are now running a range of arts-based clubs during and after the school day such as the Harry Potter Arts Club, Sewing and Textiles Club, Nature Sculpture, Choir and Street Art Club. There are a wide range of opportunities for children to engage with arts and culture; for example working with a local artist, showcasing artwork in the community, school trips to art galleries and seeing live theatre.
The Artsmark assessor commended St Michael and St John’s RC Primary School on 24th January, 2024
On receiving the award, Mrs Mabbott, Headteacher said: “We’re extremely proud of achieving our Artsmark Gold Award. We are committed to delivering a high-quality arts and cultural education and we look forward to continue to grow with Artsmark. I would like to thank Mrs Thornton (Art Lead) and the staff for all their hard work.”
Dr Darren Henley OBE, Chief Executive of the Arts Council, said:
“I would like to congratulate St Michael and St John’s RC Primary School on their Artsmark Award. Becoming an Artsmark school demonstrates that through offering a broad, ambitious and creative curriculum, young people have the opportunity to develop character and resilience, increasing their knowledge, curiosity and skills that will remain with them through to adult life.”
About Artsmark
Artsmark is the only creative quality standard for schools and education settings. It can help unlock young people’s potential, building their confidence, character, and resilience. Artsmark’s clear and flexible framework can be used to embed creativity across the whole curriculum, address school improvement priorities and ensure every young person can access a diverse, high-quality cultural education.
Artsmark is open to primary, secondary, and special schools, pupil referral units, secure settings, youth offending teams, hospital schools and sixth form colleges. Artsmark is awarded at three levels; Silver, Gold and Platinum. www.artsmark.org.uk
About Arts Council England
Arts Council England is the national development agency for creativity and culture. We have set out our strategic vision in Let’s Create that by 2030 we want England to be a country in which the creativity of each of us is valued and given the chance to flourish and where everyone of us has access to a remarkable range of high-quality cultural experiences. From 2023 to 2026 we will invest over £467 million of public money from Government and an estimated £250 million from The National Lottery each year to help support the sector and to deliver this vision. www.artscouncil.org.uk
Over the past few years SSMJ have been working towards collecting the Arts Mark.
This is a creative quality standard for schools, accredited by Arts Council England. It provides a clear framework for teachers to plan, develop and evaluate arts, culture and creativity across the curriculum. Click on the document below to find out more.
Below you will find a selection of 'Artsmark' activities the children have taken part in.
Atelier Arts
In 2022 Bev Chapelhow (From Artilier Arts), a local artist from Clitheroe, came into school and worked across the whole school to create a 'Masterpiece' for our entrance hall to school. All the children painted a tile to pull together and create this picture of our school. It represents our family ethos perfectly showing how when we all work together we can create a 'Masterpiece'.
Clitheroe Arts Festival
In the summer of 2023 Clitheroe Contemporary (the company behind the Clitheroe Arts Festival) chose St Michael & St John's to represent Clitheroe creating drone footage. Click on the link below to see what the children created.
SSMJ Choir
Performing at SMSJ Church with Rossendale Male Voice Choir
The choir meet every Thursday lunch time. We recently took part at the Live Simply Event (23rd September 2023) alongside the SSMJ Church choir. We are looking forward to singing at church on 26th November as part of the Rossendale Male Voice Choir concert. We have lots more exciting events next year too such as The Last Choir Standing and Burnley Gotta Sing.
Rossendale Male Choir
We were incredibly lucky that the Rossendale Male Choir came to perform to us today.
African Drumming
As part of around the world week, we have been focusing on Africa. For Music, we were lucky to have an African Drumming workshop led by musician Arona. The children were shown how to copy different rhythmic patterns and took part in some call and response singing. All the children were enthusiastic and had a fantastic day.
Drama at SSMJ
Choreographed Prayer Noel By Chris Tomlin
A Choreographed Prayer is an opportunity for quiet reflection through music and dance and telling the story of Jesus's birth. Our wonderful GIFT Team perform it before every Nativity to offer people that opportunity to reflect and be still.
Mindfulness Meditation
Mrs Mabbott hosts some 'Mindfulness' sessions across school throughout the year. Here are some photographs from World Mental Health Day, Mrs Mabbott held a 'Mindfulness' session on wellbeing today with Ks 2 then KS1/EYFS. It helps bring that positive mind set and give children techniques they can independently use to have a healthy mind.