Artsmark

Welcome to Carr Mill Primary School’s Artsmark page.

As a school, we believe that the creative arts play an essential role in our pupil’s education. Raising standards in reading, writing  and maths is very important but by investing in our children's creative and cultural development, not only will we enhance academic standards but also support their mental health and emotional well-being. 

To celebrate and also improve and strengthen our creative arts provision we have joined Artsmark, which is the creative quailty standard for schools awarded by the Arts Council England. 

We were proud to achieve Artsmark Gold in October 2019 

Here is what the Arts Council had to say about Carr Mill Primary School:

Carr Mill Primary School has taken a considered and thoughtful approach to Artsmark, using its two-year journey to further develop curriculum subject leads, providing opportunities for them to gain confidence and skills as well as understand which areas the school most needed to develop around the Arts. There has been an increase in trips and general connectivity to the local arts landscape and some of the whole school projects, such as engagement with Shakespeare week have been very successful. Your use of the LCEP to help provide additional CPD opportunities and the chance to think strategically and reflectively will certainly stand you in good stead as you continue on your Artsmark journey and shows good long term thinking on your part. You are thinking in cross curricular ways with the Arts, looking to integrate them into themes and initiatives. Again, this shows good understanding of the affordances of arts skills and pedagogies, and how they can be mobilised to achieve a wide range of outcomes if planned for thoughtfully. Good examples of this include ‘Friendship Week’ in October 2018 when the school's Health, Well-being and Mindset curriculum team included the whole school in creating an art installation for the school’s ‘Friendship Garden’. The Mathematical Reasoning Team also held a ‘Musical Maths Week’ in January 2019. Additionally, the pastoral team have been working on improving attendance and one way of doing that revolved around a photography project, in which the school council developed posters to highlight the importance attending school, to be displayed around school grounds. You have developed some excellent partnerships over the past two years, such as those with CulturED and Clonter Opera Theatre and it is good to hear that you intend to continue to maintain these. Looking ahead, you mention that in recent INSETs your staff reflected on how the Arts were increasingly part of the school’s day to day pedagogy, not only part of a special themed weeks and stand-alone projects and this is excellent to hear. As you continue to develop it would be good to understand more about the ways arts-based learning helps to deliver more of your curriculum, in line with recent Ofsted changes. It would also be good to hear how you continue to keep your work child-centred and perhaps more on how you help children make decisions about their own learning through the Arts. Longer term, this could lead to you acting as an advocate or champion for these ways of working.

Congratulations on your Artsmark Gold Award!

We are excited to announce that we are about embark on our next Artsmark journey. 

Please keep checking back to our Artsmark page to watch our progress.