Creativity and art are often neglected parts of the curriculum. Yet, their importance in promoting confidence and improving health and wellbeing in young people is backed up by research.
During COVID, there were long periods of school closures and restricted access to all aspects of art. Sky Arts have decided to promote the arts by introducing Access All Arts week.
This project celebrates everything art-related and will help teachers bring the arts into their classrooms in 2022.
Benefits of the Arts
Engaging with the arts is essential to the human experience. Children are naturally drawn to communicating through artistic expression.
The arts help develop empathy and social skills and build confidence and creative thinking. In studies, curriculums that devote more time to the arts end up with better academic, social and emotional outcomes for their students.
More art often leads to more engagement from pupils and results in pupils expressing more enjoyment at school.
It is hard to argue against including more art forms in the classroom when there are many benefits to academic achievement and personal development.
Of course, catching pupils up in English and Maths is a priority for the Department of Education, so it would be easy for teachers to put art to one side. Fortunately, Sky Arts have decided to give teachers a helping hand to include a variety of art forms in schools.
Often teachers are afraid of the arts as they have little confidence in their ability to teach the subject. Having access to new resources is a great way to develop your skills in this area and will be a great way to add to your CV.
Sky Arts Week
The project aims to encourage primary teachers to promote all aspects of the arts by providing them with resources and information relating to five different forms of artistic expression.
The five modules each have two different art forms to explore.
- Marks: 2D Mark Making and 3D Mark Making
- Words: Poetry and Storytelling
- Sounds: Singing and Instruments
- Moves: Movement and Drama
- Images: Filmmaking and Photography
What makes this project exciting is the involvement of experts such as MC Grammar, YolanDa Brown and Liz Pichon. They have been chosen to inspire and share their expertise through exclusive videos.
It is hoped that their involvement will help create a buzz with pupils and encourage them to value and express themselves in their work.
Adapting Arts Weeks for your Classroom
Teachers are free to use the resources as ready-made lessons or adapt the content to meet the requirements of their students.
The good news is that all the resources are free and available to all schools in the UK from late March 2022 from Sky Arts Resource Centre. You will find clear guides to help you explore the different art forms, and there are also suggestions for calm reflection and celebration.
If you want to participate in art week from 6th to 10th June 2022, register for the resources now. It is an easy and accessible way for all schools to get creative and add some colour and fun to the curriculum.