The New School at West Heath is a Specialist Independent School catering for students aged 11-19 with a diverse range of needs. Discover, Explore and Bronze and Silver are delivered to students through the curriculum with Gold offered an extra-curricular activity for students interested in purusing a career in the arts.

John Hansard Gallery at the University of Southampton has worked in partnership with Wessex Youth Offending Team and Southampton Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programme to deliver Arts Award.

Norfolk Library and Information Service

Blessed Robert Johnson Catholic College is an 11 -18 catholic secondary school based in Telford, Shropshire. They have been offering Arts Award for over three years and so far 140 students have achieved awards. The award is offered in music, dance, drama, visual arts, film, photography and technical production.

Mounts Bay Academy is a large secondary school in rural Cornwall. They have been running Arts Award for over three years and so far 150 students have achieved awards. Arts Award is offered as an option for all students, and is delivered via extra-curricular clubs, events and trips.

Rawlins Academy delivers Arts Award through two after-school enhancement groups. One is a weekly group open to all students aged 11-19 interested in doing an Arts Award. The other is a Year 12 group who
chose Arts Award as their wider core option for post-16. Rawlins Academy also runs Arts Award courses for Skill for Learning students, who are
part of a post-16 SEN group. The Gold Award is offered on a one-to-one basis to post-16 students.

Students at The Valley School are aged between 11-16 years old and all have statements of special educational needs, with a range of moderate learning difficulties, autism spectrum disorders and speech, language and communication needs. Literacy and communication are areas that many students at The Valley School find challenging, so Arts Award is used as a way of recognising students’ abilities in the
arts.

Bronze Arts Award is offered to all Year 9 students, with Silver Arts Award as an option in Years 10 and 11. The school plans to expand this to offer Arts Award Discover and Explore as well as Gold Arts Award in the future.

Creative Youth Adventure Club  in Coventry offer all five Arts Award levels to home educated young people with participants from all over Warwickshire as well as distance learners from the UK and overseas. CYAC is a 2013-2014 Arts Award Good Practice Centre.

Old Palace of John Whitgift School is a nursery to sixth form girls school which delivers all five Arts Award levels through dance activities as part of the curriculum and as extra-curricular activities.

Based on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, Sheppey Matters is a community organisation that delivers a range of health and wellbeing projects. Arts Award is offered at all five levels through the arts and media and youth
provision programmes. The award is delivered through one to one and group work with the emphasis on young people taking ownership of their learning. 

During 2014 the Family Arts Campaign and Arts Award worked together to pilot projects across the UK, trialling different ways to integrate families into the activities undertaken by young people completing their Arts Award.

This document is a case study of a pilot project carried out by Derby QUAD and Déda by running Arts Award as a strand of QUAD’s pre-existing Q Club.

The Arts Award Access Fund provides small grants to Arts Award centres working with young people for whom access and inclusion is an issue. It first launched in 2007, and since then has enabled thousands of young people to achieve an Arts Award.

Taking part in the awards can often have a huge impact on young people’s lives, their aspirations and self-esteem. These are stories from just a few of the centres who have received Access Fund grants.

Students at Carre's Grammar School take part in Arts Award through lunchtime and after-school sessions. Young people are encouraged to bring their own personal interests and extra-curricular activities into projects. 

Young people used the First World War centenary commemorations as inspiration for their Arts Award activity, including Paul Cummins' cermaic poppies installation at the Tower of London, Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, and Michael Morpurgo's The Butterfly Lion. They work closely with local primary schools to incorporate them into Arts Award events and activities.

Staffordshire Libraries Explore Case Study

Keeping Our Girls Safe (KOGS) is a charity in Oldham which works with girls and young women to raise awareness of grooming, exploitation and unhealthy relationships. 

They explore sensitive issues through arts projects, helping raising awareness whilst enabling young people to explore and express their creativity. One of the groups KOGS are currently working with is a group of young women who are deaf, three of whom are Czech and have limited English (they have their own signers). KOGS have found that using the arts works as an effective way to transcend the language barriers and allow the girls to explore topics and demonstrate understanding in a creative way. 

Bursledon Brickworks Friday Night Project involved a group of young people with neurological problems exploring the only remaining steam driven brickworks in England through photography and model making. The group worked towards the Bronze Award.

Alabare runs The Junction, a drop in centre in Hampshire supporting young people aged between 13 and 25 who may be NEET, living in hostels, street homeless, have learning difficulties or have mental health issues.

For this Bronze Arts Award project, The Junction worked in partnership with Fixers, an initiative set up to support young people to create real change among their peers and in their communities.  By working with Fixers, students were able to deliver a social action project about an issue they felt strongly about, using music as their chosen art form.

This Arts Award Centre has integrated Arts Award into their regular offer for young people, who are supported to gain their Arts Award at Bronze, Silver or Gold level.

Alex Evans, an Arts Award adviser and freelance arts practitioner runs Arts Award with a number of centres. He ran both Bronze and Silver Arts Awards simultaneously with a small group over the course of 9 months.

Alison Deering, a former teacher, works as a freelance adviser with SEN schools and galleries. She has run Bronze Arts Award in a variety of SEN contexts.