It is official, we have been assessed and awarded the Artsmark Gold Award from the Arts Council of England!

This is a fantastic achievement, involving all of our children in every aspect of the creative arts including art,  music, design technology and drama. We are so proud of the enthusiasm, confidence and creativity of the children in our very special, small school, which we feel embraces all of the arts to inspire children towards a life-long love of learning.

This has come at a brilliant time as we are currently organising an exhibition for all the schools in our learning community’s Cooperative Trust (to be held at The Countryside Centre) to showcase the children’s wonderful artwork.

Here are some of the lovely comments that the Senior Officer at the Arts Council wrote about us:

Georgeham CofE School seems an exciting place to learn. You have set out an impressive narrative but more than this, you have a very engaging sense of ambition for next steps which carries with it an energy and sense of purpose. Highlights include: a commitment to a topic-based curriculum that encourages cross-curricular teaching of the Arts in inventive and engaging ways; depth of progression in arts subjects which you are sharing with other settings through CPD, for example depicting the learning journey of a child in a unit of work from early design sketches through to final evaluation of finished products; a school leadership team that actively promotes the idea of a wide-ranging arts and cultural curriculum, which is in turn championed by the governors. The range of arts-based enrichment activities you are engaged in, particularly for a small rural primary, is also extremely impressive and benefits your children enormously. It is also good to see that you are starting to share your thinking and strategies with other schools, for example by sharing your arts-integrated curriculum plan with its emphasis on a creative ethos. There is so much that is positive in your approach and as you turn to consider the future, one obvious point of feedback would be to keep doing what you are doing! It seems clear that you are an ambitious, outward-facing school that thinks big. You will be well-placed to adopt the mantle of leaders and opinion-formers in terms of arts-based pedagogies. A really impressive journey!

Congratulations on your Artsmark Gold Award!

Thanks for the note Mum!