Crosby Ravensworth CE Primary School receives prestigious Artsmark Award

Pupils and staff at Crosby Ravensworth CE School are celebrating after receiving a prestigious Artsmark Award in a momentous year for the programme as it celebrates 20 years of arts, culture and creativity in schools.

The Artsmark Award is the only creative quality standard for schools, accredited by Arts Council England. It supports schools to develop and celebrate arts and cultural education, putting creativity and wellbeing at the heart of the curriculum. Artsmark ensures every young person can be creative and access a diverse, high-quality cultural education.

In order to achieve their Artsmark Award, Crosby Ravensworth had to develop their arts and culture 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.

The Artsmark assessor commended Crosby Ravensworth School on:

• Working in ways that are genuinely collaborative
• Having an approach to pupil voice that is much more collegiate and day-to-day than usual approaches
• Genuinely building connections across the curriculum and laying strong foundations for further growth.
• Ensuring more opportunities to increase children’s knowledge, skills and understanding for the Arts
• Improving children's cultural capital by discussing famous works of art, encouraging them to consider how art makes them feel and why it might be important.
• Allowing older children to evaluate their own pieces through video monologues which were made available at an exciting arts evening, where Artsmark inspired work was shared and showcased.
• Engaging with local performances that are now schedules annually.
• Increasing the type and range of arts activities on offer

On receiving the award, Headteacher Duncan Priestley said: “We’re extremely proud of achieving our Artsmark Silver Award. We are committed to delivering a high-quality arts and cultural education and we look forward to continue to grow with Artsmark. We've been fortunate to have established some strong partnerships which have helped us reach this standard and I'd particularly like to thank Andi Taylor from Northern Inter-school Christian Union for her dedicated support for our 'Created to Create Arts Exhibition' at Crosby Ravensworth Village Hall last year.”

Dr Darren Henley CBE, Chief Executive of the Arts Council, said:

“I would like to congratulate Crosby Ravensworth School on 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.”