Arts Award

Girls dancing, as part of their Arts Award The Arts Award is the first award scheme to recognise the development of young artists and young arts leaders. The Arts Award celebrates the creative progress made by young people aged between 11 and 25 and not just their artistic skill. It can be taken at Bronze, Silver and Gold levels, which are accredited at levels 1, 2 and 3 on the National Qualifications Framework.

News, summer 2010: Trinity Guildhall and Arts Council England have announced that the Level 3 Gold Arts Award has been recognised on the UCAS Tariff. The Gold Arts Award has been awarded 35 Tariff points by UCAS. This compares to AS Level qualification C Grade (40 points), Higher Sports Leader Award (30 points) and Music Theory Examinations Grade 8 Distinction (30 points). Find out more.

Arts Award Advisers

All young people doing the Arts Award work with a trained Arts Award adviser. To find out about becoming an adviser and book your place on a training course visit the Arts Award website. The training will provide advice about running Arts Award programmes and assessing young people's progress.

Arts Award Centres

Student and Arts Award Adviser Any organisation (or individual) running the Arts Award is known as an Arts Award centre. Centres may be schools, youth groups, arts centres or organisations, or individuals. Before you can register as an Arts Award centre you must get someone trained as an Arts Award adviser. Once you have a trained adviser you can register as an Arts Award Centre. If you work on your own, you can be both an adviser and a centre.

Arts Award advisers are the key part of the award. You will be supporting young people throughout the award, from initial planning stages to completion. Young people make their own decisions about their work, what they want to achieve, which artforms they will explore, etc., but you will advise them using your expertise.

You can now use the website to search for schools and youth groups in your area who are running the Arts Award. Where appropriate their contact details are listed. Schools, youth groups etc. running the Arts Award will be looking for events for young people to attend and review, plus artists to work with, workshops to take part in etc. These are all requisite parts of the Award.

Go to www.artsaward.org.uk and click on Arts Award Centre Search, on the bottom right hand of the home page. Type in your post code or click on the map to list all the schools / youth groups running the Award in your area (they are called Arts Award Centres):

Arts Award in Swindon

RIO is co-ordinating the young people's Arts Awards across the South West, beyond its own regional boundaries in Cornwall, Plymouth, Bristol and the Forest of Dean. Artsmad is the license holder for the Arts Award in Swindon. This means that we are responsible for running advisor training, networking sessions and awards ceremonies. For full details of their training courses, visit the Arts Award website. Contact dhines@swindon.gov.uk if you need more information.