The Angmering School receives prestigious Artsmark Gold Award

Pupils and staff at The Angmering School are celebrating after receiving a prestigious Artsmark Gold Award in a momentous year for the programme as it celebrates 20 years of arts, culture and creativity in schools.

The Artsmark Award is the only creative quality standard for schools, accredited by Arts Council England. It supports schools to develop and celebrate arts and cultural education, putting creativity and wellbeing at the heart of the curriculum. Artsmark ensures every young person can be creative and access a diverse, high-quality cultural education.

In order to achieve their Artsmark Gold Award, The Angmering School had to develop their arts and culture provision to embed a broad and ambitious curriculum. This was achieved by creating an overall plan that was committed to and delivered across the whole school. 

The Angmering School was supported by Artswork in planning and developing their objectives. Artswork worked alongside the school at various stages to support their Artsmark Award achievement.

The Artsmark assessor commended The Angmering School on “the journey to embed arts-rich practice across the school and your community, including developing the curriculum and working with artists and the wider community through a sculpture project and Angmering Calling festival”. They went on to recognise the importance of having a senior leader responsible for “driving and developing arts and cultural provision across all phases to establish and maintain good practice, children and young people's art is showcased and displayed effectively”. The assessor highlighted that the “established arts and cultural provision at The Angmering School makes sure all children and young people have opportunities to perform, see live performances, and to create and evaluate artworks in a range of media”.

On receiving the award, Sam Hobbs, Senior Leader for Arts and Creativity said: “We’re extremely proud of achieving our Artsmark Gold Award. We are committed to delivering a high-quality arts and cultural education and we look forward to continuing to grow with Artsmark.” 

Dr Darren Henley OBE, Chief Executive of the Arts Council, said: “I would like to congratulate The Angmering School on their Artsmark Gold Award. Becoming an Artsmark school demonstrates that through offering a broad, ambitious, and creative curriculum, every pupil can develop character and resilience, increasing their knowledge, curiosity and skills that will remain with them through to adult life.”