Gold Artsmark

The Artsmark Award is the only creative quality standard for schools accredited by Arts Council England. The flexible framework helps embed arts, culture and creativity to support a broad and ambitious curriculum, strengthen pupils' voices and support personal progression.

Supported by the Senior Leadership Team, arts and culture feature in school planning and cross-curricular work. The award puts creativity and wellbeing at the heart of the school's curriculum by:

• Supporting the health and wellbeing of pupils with arts, culture and creativity
• Ensuring every young person can be creative and access a diverse, high-quality cultural education
• Engaging, motivating and upskilling teaching staff using Artsmark's CPD and whole-school collaboration
• Providing access to professional support, advice and resources to strengthen the arts provision with Artsmark

Pupils have also worked on many projects, such as working with a local artist to create a large mosaic for a community centre, which then inspired the local community to create mosaics and a mosaic trail around Wrenthorpe. The team also planned a Sikh community kitchen initiative to develop community cohesion and cultural awareness, resulting in parents and the local community coming together. This has further developed the art of cooking and sharing the yummy food created for themed events based on countries, for example, African, Greek and American food.

If that wasn't impressive enough, pupils have also focused on the arts for careers week, where a cake decorator, a musician, a photographer and a journalist came to share their journeys, inspiring them to explore different professions such as game designing, animations, fashion and interior design. Furthermore, Year 6 pupils attended the Deer Shed Festival in North Yorkshire, where they took part in theatre, dance and wellbeing workshops with other mainstream schools. Marked in the school calendar, they also celebrate Sky Arts and Emotional Literacy Week, Black History Month and Neurodiversity Week.

All this and more has resulted in corners of the school being adorned with work, including two large mosaics, wall hangings, ceramics, fusion glass, fluid art, displays showcasing workshops, all created by pupils and staff.

Seriously, how impressive are they? Well done, everyone.