Arts Award Resources

Photo of Amy who achieved her Gold Arts Award with DIY in September 2020

Photo of Amy who achieved her Gold Arts Award with DIY in September 2020

Delivering Arts Award from a Distance

During the Covid-19 Lockdown, DIY Theatre Company put together some ideas and resources for those delivering Arts Award with children and young people with learning disabilities.

Not everybody we work with has the same access to, or the same skills and confidence in using, digital platforms. What has worked best for us so far is a combination of digital resources and more traditional ‘resource packs’.  This section reflects this balance of different approaches.

Additional resources can be found on our ‘Create + Connect!’ page.

Discover Arts Award

Discover Arts Award is an introductory award certified by Trinity College London.

Discover Arts Award has 3 parts.

For Part A – ‘Discover’ – young people should participate in a range of arts activities and experiences.

DIY Young Leaders’ Circus Tricks! project has a range of music, drama and arts activities that young people can experience and engage with. These include:

  • Singing the Welcome Song with the Ringmaster
  • Playing junk percussion with the Strong Man
  • Trying Forbidden Rhythms with the Tiger
  • Decorating the Joker’s colouring in cards

Take a look at our Circus Tricks Resource page to find out more.

For Part B – ‘Find Out’ – young people should find out about one artist or arts organisation. You can find out more about the actors who created ‘Circus Tricks’ by:

  • Looking at the DIY Theatre Company website
  • Downloading our ‘Meet the Artist’ Resource Sheets which you can find on our Create + Connect page

For Part C – ‘Share’ – young people should share with others what they have enjoyed and learnt throughout the award. This could be through:

  • Identifying who their favourite circus character is and what they learnt from their music / drama / arts activity
  • Creating a Ribbon Stick that moves and dances while the Ring-Master sings
  • Creating a Circus Zine and sharing this with others

If you are a registered Arts Award Centre or Advisor, we have created this Discover Arts Award Assessment Sheet so you can keep a record of your learner’s journey through the Circus Tricks Project.

Explore Arts Award

Explore is an Entry Level Three qualification.

It has 4 parts:

For Part A – ‘Inspire’ – young people are introduced to 2 different arts activities and express what they like best, about them.

DIY has created some resource sheets to introduce young people to different activities they can do at home, with limited resources. Don’t forget young people also need to say what they liked about each activity .

Here are some examples of the resources that DIY have been using:

For Part B – ‘Explore’ – young people find out about Artists & Arts Organisations.

DIY has created some sheets about DIY company members and about DIY Theatre Company as an organisation.

Find out about some of DIY Actors:

Find out about DIY Theatre Company by completing our resource sheet ‘Find out about DIY’ and watching some of the company’s videos about our work:

For Part C – ‘Create’ – young people create a piece of artwork which demonstrate Arts Skills.

For each stage the process of creating the artwork must be demonstrated.

Examples of activities appropriate for Part C include:

Learn how to make a ‘zine’ with our Circus Zine template. Then design and make a unique zine based on your own ideas and interests.

Learn how to play the rhythm to Harry Potter with these 3 videos put together for us by Musician Sarah Atter, then make up and record your own rhythm.

  • Rhythm video 1 – Sarah leads us in learning the words for our Harry Potter chant.
  • Rhythm video 2 – drumming with wooden spoons.
  • Rhythm video 3 – Sarah shows us how to play the Harry Potter Rhythm In A Round!

Bronze Arts Award

Bronze Arts Award is Level 1 qualification. It has 4 parts:

For Part B – explore the arts as an audience member – young people create a review and share it with others.

DIY has created a simple template for a review which members are sharing on our private Facebook Group.

For Part C – arts inspiration – young people research an artist, craftsperson or arts practitioner and share their research with others.

We have created a resource sheet for decorating a shoe box based on your research into a artist or craftsperson.

For Part D – arts skill share – young people pass on their arts skills or knowledge to others.

Young learners must plan their skill share, deliver it and then evaluate how it went.

DIY members have been sharing skills including circus skills, rhythms and songs – in videos posted on DIY’s private Facebook Group.
An alternative is to create a ‘How To’ guide.
  • Take a look at some of our ‘How To’ guides as inspiration for you to design and share your own.

Silver Arts Award

Silver is a Level Two qualification. It has 2 units:

For Unit Two – arts leadership – young people identify, plan, carry out and review an arts leadership challenge.

An important part of Unit 2 is that young people reflect on the skills and qualities needed for leadership and reflect on the skills they would like to develop as leaders.

DIY has developed a resource which supports young people to think about leadership and what it means to them, before planning their own arts challenge.

We have also created a video to help you think about leadership: