Explore Arts Award in one week Music workshops

Over the last year, through the support of Youth Music, Unitas has collaborated with local authorities and music organisations to deliver intensive one week music workshops to groups of young people who were identified as being at risk of social exclusion. These intensive one week music workshops provided groups of young people who were not in education or training with an exciting opportunity to: • develop music skills • increase their confidence • progress into education and training.

One week music workshops The one week music workshops,  which we called ‘Arts Colleges’, built on the  successes of the Summer Arts Colleges programme http://www.unitas.uk.net/SummerArtsColleges/.  (see Claire Sivier, Eagle Radio Academy of Arts and Media case study, August 2013 on Youth Music Network).  However, rather than being held during the summer holiday period, these workshops provided opportunities throughout  the year for young people to take part in music learning.

In Newham, a group of ten young people took part in a one week ‘Arts College’, during which they worked with Radio King Academy  http://www.radiokingonline.com/academy/.  They used their love of music to learn new skills of creating, presenting and recording for the radio. This video was created with the young people to showcase their work and achievement.

Using Arts Award to recognise achievement An important part of the Arts College was to recognise achievement and build confidence of young people to engage in education and training -  gaining a nationally recognised qualification is a valuable way of demonstrating to young people that they can achieve.   Arts Award, a qualification provided by Trinity College, offers a great opportunity to recognise achievement across all art forms.  www.artsaward.org.uk/.  The range of  different levels which can be achieved through Arts Awards gives  music leaders scope to identify an Arts Award that can be achieved in the time available to the young people.

For many music leaders this was the first time they had offered Explore Arts Award, or the first time they had delivered the Award through a short, intensive project.  Music leaders and other staff delivering the Arts College reflected during their review and  self evaluation that the  Explore Arts Award was achievable by young people within a one week music project.  However success depended upon music leaders undertaking careful planning to ensure all young people had multiple opportunities to meet the requirements of each Award.  Music leaders had to take responsibility for planning and monitoring progress towards achievement of the Awards, but it was possible and worth the effort.

The  young people were clear that  they valued the opportunity to achieve Explore Arts Award and the effort made by music leaders to enable them to achieve this qualification. • In the survey of young people at the end of each Arts College, two thirds of the young people said that achieving the Arts Award qualification was important to them.  • So far, 78% of young people who took part  in the Youth Music funded ‘Arts Colleges’ have achieved an Arts Award (and more young people are expected to achieve as moderations are completed).