While our pupils were away from the school over the summer, Arts Council England were busy assessing our comprehensive application for the Artsmark accreditation, which is the only register for creativity in education settings nationally. And we are delighted to have been awarded the Gold award, which recognises Framlingham College at the fore in encouraging and promoting the arts and culture across the Prep and Senior school.
The Artsmark website describes the accreditation as: “Artsmark is the only creative quality standard for schools and education settings, accredited by Arts Council England. Artsmark’s flexible framework is designed to help you embed arts, culture and creativity across your whole curriculum, celebrating your commitment to cultural education. Artsmark is open to primary, secondary and special schools, pupil referral units, youth offending teams and sixth form colleges.”
Sir Matthew Bourne OBE, Director and Choreographer, said: “Arts in schools is of high importance to me personally. It not only supports the next generation of artists but also gives people confidence and the ability to creatively problem solve, skills needed for any chosen career path. By embarking on Artsmark, schools challenge certain perceptions of arts in education and make a bold statement to bring arts back to the heart of learning.”
To become an Artsmark accredited education setting, we were required to collate a body of evidence of the way in which creativity is embedded across the school, both in our curriculum and in our extra-curricular activities. Former Deputy Head Co-Curricular, Mark Robinson, who played an instrumental role in submitting the comprehensive application for Artsmark, said: “Contributing to the award of Artsmark Gold has involved promoting ‘Arts & Culture’ in the broadest possible sense of the term in every imaginable context: within the curriculums and co-curriculums of both FCPS and the Senior School, across the 3-18 age range; in all-manner of ‘enrichment’ activities, local community partnerships and outreach initiatives, as well as whole-school enterprises like the Arts Award and Responsible Schools’ Project. Staff creativity and positive associations with the arts has been instrumental in us obtaining this award and we are delighted that our College has been recognised as such.”
The award will be a badge of honour for the College for many years to come and will enable us to interact with other Artsmark accredited institutions to share ideas and best practice. For our existing pupils, the benefits are wide-ranging as we have an obligation through this accreditation to continue to demonstrate that we are developing our creative quality standard in as many areas of our education as possible.
