Trust, transformation, and the Arts - test
We speak to Lynn Mathers, Cultural Champion and Music and Art Lead at Lakeside Primary Academy in Doncaster, about their first ever Artsmark journey, achieving Platinum in April this year.
Owning our story and loving ourselves through the process is the bravest things that we will do… trust is built by small moments. Brené Brown
Our Artsmark journey has, in the spirit of Kintsugi, been about piecing the parts of our arts offer that we already had in place, identifying missing pieces and bonding them, by urushi (Japanese lacquer), resulting in each individual part finding its own significant place.
All in bits!
In 2022, I was invited by our Trust to participate in the Cultural Champions Middle Leaders programme, facilitated by the Royal Opera House (Royal Ballet and Opera). This creative collaboration has proved, and continues to prove, to be invaluable both for my own professional development and for promoting the use of dance, drama and design approaches to enhance learning across the curriculum.
The sessions, which focussed on honing our own leadership styles and participating in the practical Create and Learn sessions, were truly inspirational.
I was then invited to apply for our first Artsmark Award. The timing was ideal- I realised I could use the Quality Principles and the Artsmark Framework to review, and develop further, our global arts offer.
Before I became Music and Art Lead, the subjects were led by different teachers. The process of bringing so many exciting but disparate elements together, though challenging, was essential to create a whole picture.
I created an action plan and decided on objectives for Artsmark which were:
- Achievable within two years
- Were linked to developing as flourishing and sustainable arts offer as possible.
Building trust was the key to create an affiliated dynamic whole, a celebration of the Arts at Lakeside.
Surveying the fragments
Each “fragment”, some that were well-established, were happening in isolation. By bringing the fragments together, fillable gaps in our offer could be identified.
Relating to our music offer, we were teaching lessons in line with the National Curriculum, giving our pupils opportunities to play instruments, compose, listen and appraise, but singing together was a missing piece. Singing assemblies had not re-started since Covid so I offered to lead regular singing assemblies along with an after-school singing group. This became an objective for our Artsmark Statement of Commitment.
The impact of this was to re-energize pupils’ love of singing – across school - and then subsequently, to considerably improve the quality of singing in performances.
Also, one of our objectives was to provide training for all staff to deliver dance-based lessons to consolidate learning in foundation subjects. However, capacity to deliver was impacted when our PE subject leader began her maternity leave. Following the Artsmark training, I was reassured that I could amend the original objectives. The focus was changed - to providing whole school staff training for teaching drama approaches instead. I was supported in this by an arts-based charity who had begun working with Key Stage 1, and were able to enlarge their scope to deliver to staff in both key stages.
Joining with gold
My urushi, the lacquer that joins all the pieces together, was the eight Artsmark Criteria underpinned by the Quality Principles.
Where there was a gap in provision or where an initiative was still in its early stages of being embedded, these formed the basis of objectives for our Artsmark application.
Our pupil and staff voice is overwhelming evidence for the impact of all we are achieving.
Thank you for giving us all so much joyfulness… I never thought I could do this. I feel very confident in myself.
It’s been wonderful. I love being in this (non-audition based after-school choir) singing group. I didn’t know I could love singing so much. I feel so proud of myself and of all of us.
Since beginning the Artsmark journey, so many pupils have accessed experiences they would not have done otherwise:
- over 200 children have sung publicly
- over 150 children have performed dance works to audiences
- over 400 children through KS1 and KS2 are participating in drama lessons to communicate historical, geographical or science concepts.
Our application was an opportunity to celebrate our story.
It is also a gift that keeps on giving: our creative collaborations continue to inspire, colleagues are now training and coaching – sharing their recently acquired expertise and professional learning; colleagues’ confidence continues to grow in integrating drama approaches across the curriculum.
