We have made some important changes to how we quality assure Arts Award. The changes to the quality assurance process will improve the assessment and certification process for centres allowing greater focus on the delivery of Arts Award for young people.
In practice, this will mean that the majority of centres will no longer be moderated every time they enter young people for Arts Award certification. For more detailed information, read our News and FAQs and check the Enter Young People section of our website.
So you're centre is validated and you’ve trained as an Arts Award adviser . Congratulations! Now it's time to plan your first Arts Award project. We've got advice to help you get going and resources to support you along the way.
A good starting point is to take stock of what your organisation is already doing around arts and culture with young people. Could you link Arts Award to existing activities, clubs or events? Look at your adviser toolkit for ideas and browse our resource library and blog if you need inspiration for projects or ways to deliver them.
We've created handy resources to help you map your centre's current arts education activities against the framework for each level of Arts Award, Discover, Explore, Bronze, Silver and Gold. Use these to identify any gaps and think about the best way to fill them. If you need to know anything more about a level's status as a qualification, check out our qualification page.
Where and when will your group meet? How will you recruit young people? And how will they collect and present evidence to meet the award criteria – on paper, in photographs, in video or audio recordings, online? Will you encourage them to choose their evidence method, or provide a template for them such as our designed logbooks available in our shop? Whatever the format of their portfolio or 'arts log', you'll need to offer guidance, review their work along the way, and assess it at the end.
Think about how you might signpost to the resources and tools available for young people on Arts Award Voice and create yourself your own account to access them.
You'll have to do some number-crunching too. How much time will you and your group need to complete each level? How will you cover the project and qualification costs?
You're never alone when delivering Arts Award, support is on offer at every stage. Useful online resources at this stage include:
If you need support with any part of the assessment or moderation process, remember we have the blog, free support sessions and webinars.
You can also get advice from the Arts Award support team by emailing artsawardenquiries@trinitycollege.co.uk or booking in a support call.