Latest Arts Award Congratulations – its Bronze x 3!
Congratulations to Passing the Baton members Viv, Georgia and Lewis who have all achieved their Bronze Arts Awards! Extra praise is in order as they all succeeded when, to stay safe during the pandemic, they could only connect via Zoom. This really was an extra achievement!
These are just the latest Arts Award achievements for young people supported by Passing the Baton, our dedicated youth arts programme funded for 3 years by the National Lottery Community Fund.
To date, our Passing the Baton programme has supported 146 Arts Award achievements for children and young people with a learning disability. Of these 52 are at the introductory ‘Discover’ level, 91 at Explore/Bronze level, 2 Silver and 1 at the top Gold level. Phew!
In addition, 4 of our Young Leaders have achieved Arts Awards Advisor Status. This means they have the skills to support others on their Arts Award journeys.
Find out more about Arts Award and how we use it to support young people with learning disabilities develop their creative practice.
Viv’s character Ava feels happy when she goes on holiday, H is for HAPPY!
How did Viv, Georgia and Lewis get their Bronze Arts Awards?
To achieve a Bronze Arts Award young people have to take part in the arts and share new skills! It is a Level One qualification.
Taking part in the arts
Lewis developed his music and story-telling skills, created a story and then made sound effects to go with the story. Georgia and Viv both worked on the Circus Tricks Holiday Song. This was a spin off from Passing the Baton’s earlier Circus inspired music and drama project ‘Circus Tricks’. Thanks to funding from Youth Music, we were able to bring in specialist musicians for this project, including David MacFarlane. He introduced Passing the Baton members to Google Chrome Lab and digital music making skills. Each circus character decided where they would like to go on holiday. Viv created a clown character called Ava. She told us that she “thought of lyrics for the song, which focused on how Ava feels when she goes on holiday – HAPPY!” Georgia created a juggler character called Ciaron who wanted to go on holiday to Egypt. Her line in the Holiday song was “L is for Lovely Lollipops!” Having created lyrics for the song, and illustrations to accompany these lines, the group worked in Google Chrome Lab to develop the music.
Watch the Holiday Song on YouTube
Viv said:
What I liked best about the project was…I really enjoyed thinking about images that could go with the song, and how the song conjured up lots of images in my head.”
What I learnt was… How to use Google Chrome Music Lab as this is something I had never done before”
Something I enjoyed was… Listening to the song – it makes me feel like I’m on holiday!”
Georgia said:
What I liked best about the project was… Creating the music using Google Chrome Lab – I had never used this before!”
What I learnt was… There are so many different music apps to make music”
Something I enjoyed was…Creating the lyrics and the song”
Where did they get their Arts inspiration?
Researching an artist is another part of the work required to achieve Bronze. The group chose some very different artists to research. Georgia chose two – our very own film maker, Hilary Easter Jones, and the pop band One Direction. Lewis chose the actor and singer Zac Effron and Viv chose actress and comedian Julie Walters and our own Visual Artist Claire Hignett.
Georgia leading her drawing activity on Zoom.
How did they demonstrate leadership skills?
They chose very different ways to show off their leadership skills. Georgia led a drawing activity with other Young Leaders, Viv taught other group members how to create their own cards and Lewis taught members of our Youth Drama Club how to make Playdough pizza!
Lewis reflected on his skillshare for his Arts Award
Why did you choose Play Dough as your skill share? “Because I really like the feel of Play Dough – I enjoy squashing the ball into the pizza base especially.”
On a scale of 1 to 10 my skill share was … “10”
What one thing could you improve on? “I could have shown my family – I would have loved to have shared my skill with my grandma.”
I am so proud of everyone for achieving their Bronze Arts Award – especially during a pandemic whilst all our sessions were taking place on Zoom! Well done to everyone, including the DIY members who volunteered to assist participants!”
Molly, Passing the Baton Facilitator
Many thanks to the funders who have supported this work; the National Lottery Community Fund and Youth Music, and the National Lottery via Arts Council England.
