Artsmark Silver Award

 Goldenhill Primary Academy has been awarded the Silver Artsmark award by the Arts Council England:

"Being an Artsmark school demonstrates that through offering a broad, balanced and creative curriculum, young people have the opportunity to develop character and talent and increase their knowledge, curiosity and skills that will remain with them as they go through adult life."

Dr Darren Henley OBE, Chief Executive, Arts Council England.

The sliver level award celebrates the schools' ongoing commitment to arts and cultural education, and the opportunities emerging across the whole setting. It also celebrates that, at Goldenhill, young people are offered equal opportunities to participate in a broad range of arts; that the school recognises the importance of development opportunities for staff; understands the value of working with arts and cultural organisations; and that pupils, in addition to being able to develop skills and knowledge, are also confident and have self-belief.

Feedback from Artsmark

Your Cast of Thousands clay project, with associated CPD cascaded to the staff was clearly a great success.

Your Academy Council allows you to hear pupil voice and it will be good to build on this and give all pupils greater responsibility for planning and delivering arts experiences.

Your documentation talks about your Shakespeare project with year 5 and your Clay project, both of which are impressive.

Working alongside other schools in your MAT to share resources and good practice, and engaging further in partnerships that will strengthen CPD and expand pupils’ experiences, will see you building on the good foundations you have laid.

You have forged some partnerships and it is good that you are planning to maintain and extend these, just as you are planning to extend your links to other schools and the wider community.

Creative Arts at Goldenhill

At Goldenhill, we have clearly linked arts and culture to wider learning opportunities for children and young people so that they can apply their arts learning in a wider context. All aspects of the Arts are valued within the academy by both staff and children. This is reflected in our developments of a solid wider creative curriculum that has been tailor made for our cohort.

Quotes from pupils and staff

‘I am more confident when using clay now.’

‘I have been independent, patient and realised that not all things have to be perfect to be beautiful!’

‘I made all the parts, different shapes using different tools and techniques.’

‘I will use these skills in all my Art lessons working with moulding materials.’

‘I have learnt about my History of clay in Stoke-On-Trent.’

‘I developed acting skills and gained confidence in front of an audience.’

‘When you’re speaking you need to be loud and clear.’

‘I now love drama and Shakespeare!’

‘I’ve learnt what it was like back in the day!’

‘The quieter children out of their shell and it allowed all children to empathise with different characters. They enjoyed putting together their own script and took ownership of this. Performance skills and confidence developed considerably and they reflected well on changes.’