Gomersal Primary School Arts Council
A brief history:
In February, 2017, we started our very first pupil led Arts Council, here at Gomersal Primary School.
Children in Years 5 and 6 were asked to submit their interest to be part of the council, by writing a letter of application.
In total, 14 children were chosen to form our first Arts Council.
We formed sub groups within the council and created suggestion boxes for each of the arts subjects. Art, Dance, Music and Drama.
This gives all children in school the opportunity to contribute ideas that we can then discuss.
We have regular meetings where we discuss a range of ideas. All of these are logged within our meeting minutes book and shared
with relevant members of staff.
During this first year we developed a strong link with staff at the Arts Council Collection, based at the Longside Gallery in
Yorkshire and at the Southbank Centre in London.
We also worked with a local graphic designer to create our GPS arts council logo.
Our School Arts Council is open to children in Years 5 and 6.
These children will work alongside Mrs. Barrett to improve the arts within our school.
Learn more about the Arts Council and the things they have achieved....
2022-2023 Arts Council
Our 2022-2023 Arts Council consists of 17 children from Years 5 and 6
They will spend this year working alongside Mrs. Barrett to help improve our Arts subjects in school.
Here are this year's highlights:
Our Arts Council children are working on a range of strategies to gather pupil voice from across school. We already have our arts suggestion boxes and we are now helping to monitor these new arts jars that are located in the art room. We will be chatting to children across school to find out more about the learning taking place during their arts lessons. Our Arts Council led a whole school assembly and a KS1 assembly to talk about their roles in the council and how they will gather pupil voice throughout the year.
Working with local radio DJ - Andi Durrant
Local radio DJ, Andi Durrant spent an afternoon, in 2023, working with our Arts Council children, in our digital recording studio. We learnt how to use the equipment to create our own dance tunes and different sound effects that can be used within storytelling. Our Arts Council children will now begin teaching children across school how to use the equipment, they would also like to begin an after school DJ club for children in KS2. We were all very excited to develop our musical skills, especially as it's Kirklees Year of Music.
We have organised three afterschool recording studio clubs with children from Years 3, 4 and 5. The Year 6 members of our arts council stayed after school to support the running of these clubs.
The Leeds Discovery Centre Visit 2023
Our Arts Council children thoroughly enjoyed working at the Leeds Discovery Centre in June 2023. They toured the stores (which contain over a million artefacts) learnt about being a curator and reinforced their knowledge of our curriculum. After the tour they selected artefacts, from the shelves in the stores, to use in an observational drawing task. We were also inspired by some of the local significant artworks displayed in the Leeds Art Gallery. We will now consider how this local resource could be used to enhance our school curriculum. We will find out if we are able to borrow resources that can be used within school.
2021-2022 Arts Council - Archive
Our Arts Council children helped to raise funds for The Kirkwood (which is a local charity) during the Kirklees Snowdog trail. It was the children's idea to hold a non uniform day and sell wristbands which helped our school to be able to raise over £800. We designed and painted our own Snowdog Pup sculpture and we also had the opportunity to work with a local artist while he was creating his larger sculpture, Two Tone Textile Tilly. It was wonderful to be able to see an artist at work in our art room. Our Snowdog was on display in our local town, Cleckheaton and we enjoyed following the maps to locate him and the other 62 dogs, during the community trail. Our pup was named Tex by one of our children. This is because we have been developing our textile curriculum in school, with links to our local heritage. Tex has now been returned to school and is located in our school entrance. Creating the sculpture and being part of the community trail has been a fabulous experience for everyone involved. Two Tone Textile Tilly was sold at auction for £2300. We felt incredibly proud to be part of this community project.
A visit to the University of Huddersfield
Our Arts Council children were invited to spend the day at the University of Huddersfield with children from four local schools. We were able to see the textile degree show and work with technicians, artists, students, teachers and lecturers from the university, on a variety of textile based projects. Our Arts Council members were given the opportunity to run their own workshop for other children and spent time teaching others how to make their own pom poms in one of the university studios. We also learnt new techniques by attending workshops by children from the other schools. It was a great opportunity to talk to children from other arts councils. We shared what we had learnt and experienced during our art lessons, when we returned to school. We now know what is on offer in one of our local universities and have enjoyed seeing their facilities and learning about their degree courses.
A visit from Jo Blaker
Local artist, Jo Blaker spent the afternoon working with the children in our Arts Council. She brought a selection of her sketchbooks into school to share with us and we also had the opportunity to share our sketchbooks with her. We were wanting to learn more about how artists use sketchbooks in their work and how this can help our children in school when we use our sketchbooks.
Our Arts Council children will now pass this information on to other children in school to support their learning. It was interesting to chat to a local artist to find out how sketchbooks are an essential part of her creative practice.
Working with our Arts Governor - Andi Durrant
Local radio DJ and our school Arts Governor, Andi Durrant spent two afternoons in 2021 working with our Arts Council children, in our digital recording studio. We learnt how to use the equipment to create our own dance tunes and different sound effects, that can be used within storytelling. Our Arts Council children will now begin teaching children across school how to use the equipment.
This project was started in 2019 and is linked to our ArtsMark journey, but we were unable to continue due to Covid 19 bubble restrictions. Our new Arts Council children are eager to share their new knowledge with others.
We have trained children in other year groups to use the studio and we were able to see the impact of this during our arts week. Children in Year 5 used the studio for the first time to create sound tracks to accompany their sculpted story settings.
In other news:
We have also created six art grab bags that children can use in the playground, during playtime. This was an idea that the children created in response to comments in our suggestion boxes, where children commented that there was often little to do during their playtimes. The canvas bags are full of art resources and sketchbooks that will be monitored throughout the year. It is the council's responsibility to ensure the bags are kept tidy and resources replenished, when needed.
We have conducted an arts questionnaire to find out what children in school think about our arts provision and if we can do anything as an arts council to improve anything. We have made some jars in the art room to help children to talk about their arts lessons and discuss what they are proud of, what they enjoy, what they find challenging and how they can ask for support, if needed.
At the beginning of Arts Week, our Arts Council children wrote and performed their own whole school assembly via teams. We talked about the different arts subjects and how these link to our local heritage.
Our new Arts Council was formed in October 2021
2019-2020 Arts Council - Archive
Links with the Arts Council Collection
During this school year we have worked closely with the Arts Council Collection to create two videos. We enjoyed a visit to the Longside Gallery and Natalie Walton has visited our school to talk to us about different sculptures.
This photograph was taken in the offices of the Arts Council Collection at the Longside Gallery. We were able to learn about the different job roles within the Arts Council Collection and ask questions about working in the Arts sector.
We were excited to work with the Arts Council Collection to create a film based on the work of female sculptors. We spent the day
at the Longside Gallery, learning about Calendula's Cloak created by Jann Haworth and worked with a film crew to produce a short
film. As part of the filming process, we were able to make contact with Jann and ask questions about her work.
Here is a link to the video we have made about Jan Haworth's soft sculpture, Calendula's Cloak. It can be found with lesson plans and links on the Art UK website for children across the United Kingdom to use in their art lessons.
We also created this video with the Arts Council Collection. It was really special to be able to make contact with Jann Haworth and ask her questions about her work. We really enjoy working with staff at the Arts Council Collection.
Working with our Arts link governor - Andi Durrant
Over the past few years Andi Durrant has worked with our school to help fund and build a recording studio and radio station. In December 2019, our arts council children spent the morning with Andi, learning how to use the equipment and software. We were able to produce our own dance tunes during this session and learnt different ways in which we could use the studio within our music curriculum. We had great fun and learnt how to teach other children to use the equipment.
As a direct result of this training, we are now able to show children across our school how to use the equipment to create their own
digital tunes. Our Arts Council members help to take groups of children into the studio, supporting them with their learning.
We will continue to work with Andi over this year to further develop our knowledge and skills.
Our Arts Council children ran a stall at the school Christmas Fair, selling badges and other home made craft pieces. In total we raised
a magnificent £200 which we will spend on new reading books for our art room library. It is nice to learn about different artists
through reading stories as well as using non fiction texts. Here are some of our recent purchases - we highly recommend them!
2018-2019 Arts Council Archive
Our 2018-2019 Arts Council consisted of 14 members from Years 5 and 6.
They spent the year working alongside Mrs Barrett to continue improving our Arts provision in school.
We are excited to announce that our Arts Council has been nominated for a National Award from the Creative Learning Guild. Watch this space for more news. Fingers crossed!
Visit to Laura Slater's print studio
In March 2019, we visited Laura Slater's print studio, in Leeds. We learnt all about Laura's work and took part in many different printing activities. The prints that we have produced will be used to create an education pack that will be used as part of a touring Arts Council Collection exhibition. During our visit, we had the opportunity to create a screen print and use Laura's washout booth.
Leading a workshop at the NSEAD national conference 2019
Our children are busily preparing a print based workshop for the NSEAD conference in June. Our pupil led Arts Council have been invited to lead a session for delegates attending the conference at The Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield. We will use this opportunity to talk about the work of our Arts Council and our hopes for the future.
Please contact NSEAD for tickets:
We had great fun leading the print workshop at the NSEAD National Conference, in June.
The Arts Council discussed our relationship with the Arts Council Collection and the projects we have worked on together.
We met Keith Brymer Jones, who listened to our philosophy on Art education in school, along with many other wonderful people.
The 4MinuteFilm Challenge
We are excited to have secured some funding from Culture Street to produce a short film about a publicly owned sculpture. We will work with the Arts Council Collection and one of their sculptures to produce a 4 minute film.
This project will encourage our pupil led Arts Council to research artists, share discoveries, plan challenges, identify a leadership role and work effectively with others. We are looking forward to strengthening our link with the Arts Council Collection, as we explore their collection of sculptures.
Our Arts Council members are keen fundraisers and currently have £700 in their bank account from selling badges.
We are wanting to raise more funds to help buy iPads to be used in our art room.
The children decided to fill a grid with £1 coins. When the grid is full they will have raised enough to buy an iPad.
The fundraising went incredibly well. Our Arts Council raised £260 in less than 2 weeks by selling badges, friendship bracelets and lavender bags and were able to purchase an iPad for use in the Art Room.
This funding was then added to by Mrs Barrett's Arts fund and our parents association FOG.
In total we were able to buy 16 iPads which we will now use to enhance our digital art skills.
2017-2018 Arts Council archive
Our current 2017-2018 Arts Council consists of 15 members from Years 5 and 6.
Our main aim this year is to work alongside Mrs Barrett, who is gathering evidence for our Artsmark case study. We will also be working with local DJ and school governor, Andi Durrant, to create a digital recording studio and community radio station within school.
We have recently purchased a badge making machine in order to generate our own funds. We will work to invest our money into improving the quality of our arts education in school.
After a successful stall at our Christmas Fair we have so far raised £320.
Our Arts Council visits London
In March, 2018 six members of our arts council visited London with Mrs Barrett and Ms Cox. We were invited to speak at an APPG meeting in the House of Commons about why we feel art and creativity are important parts of the curriculum. This was a very exciting opportunity. Follow the link below to find out more:
Antony Gormley sculpture visit
In July, Natalie Walton from the Arts Council Collection came to visit our pupil led Arts Council, bringing with her a very important and famous sculpture.
Antony Gormley's Field for the British Isles (six pieces not all 40,000)
We learnt a lot about the sculpture from how it was created to how it is now stored within the Arts Council Collection. We then worked with clay to create our own mini version of the 'Field'. It has been an amazing opportunity to work with such a prolific piece of artwork. Our Arts Councillors are inspired to find out more!
We would like to thank the Arts Council Collection for this wonderful opportunity.
Creating Education Packs for the
Arts Council Collection
We have worked with curators at the Arts Council Collection (ACC) to create an education resource pack to be used alongside a touring exhibition called 'On Paper'. Our children enjoyed researching and finding out about the different artists and their work. We then worked together to produce some ideas for activities, inspired by the artworks in the exhibition.
To see the education pack, please use the following link:
AD magazine article
Our Arts Council featured in an edition of AD (art and design) magazine, published by the NSEAD (National Society in Education for Art and Design) We were able to discuss our work as an arts council and our hopes for the future.
All our arts councillors were given a complimentary copy of the magazine to keep.
2016-2017 Arts Council archive
We started our first Arts Council in February 2017 with 14 members from Years 5 and 6.
In June, 2017 we had the opportunity to visit the Arts Council Collection, based at the Longside Gallery, within the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. We had a guided tour and worked with Arts Council Collection colleagues.
To find out more about our visit, click on the following link:
During our visit, we helped to create a video promoting the work of the Arts Council Collection. We learnt how to use the equipment and interviewed members of staff with questions we had generated ourselves.
We have also worked with The Arts Council Collection to help write education packs for teachers to use while visiting art galleries. We were able to test out some of our ideas at the Kaleidoscope exhibition at Longside.
You can find our teachers pack on the Arts Council Collection website.