Open accessibilty tools

Arts Award as part of a museum visit

Teachers planning a class visit to a museum, may want to consider including Arts Award as part of the experience. This could be at entry level – Discover – or the slightly more advanced level – Explore.

Arts Award Discover and Explore are all about deepening engagement with the arts and a museum visit can include opportunities to encounter many different art forms – from sculptures to ceramics, from landscapes to jewellery – as well as a chance for students to get creative themselves.

Most of our partner museums can weave an Arts Award Discover into one of their standard curriculum programmes.

Discover has three distinct sections.

In this section, students notice art all around them and have a go themselves. They can do both these things as part of a museum visit with a focus on art. They could also do these as part of a curriculum topic visit, for example seeing the Saxon Jewels and having a go at making some jewellery themselves.

Students can find out about the work of creative people like our Learning Officers, who run workshops for schools in museums. Depending which workshop you’ve booked your visit may also include working with a creative writer, photographer, painter or poet, or perhaps students might find out about a famous designer through seeing their work. If the standard workshop you book doesn’t include an artist, our museums may be able to bring one in (although you would need to cover their costs). Alternatively we have a great FREE online resource Local arts and artists that you could use to introduce children to the work of artists from the Tees Valley. https://teesvalleymuseums.org/theme/local-art-and-artists/

Students need to record in their log books what they have found out and what they’ve made. You can buy official log books but our museums are happy to give you ours for free. Then students need to share their work. That might be giving a presentation in school, having an assembly or even just talking to family and friends at home about what they’ve found out.

Send us your students’ completed log books and we will enter them with Trinity College, who then issue the official Arts Award Discover certificate. We may be able to help you with the cost of this, so do talk to the Learning Officer when you book your visit. Then it’s just a case of celebrating your students’ success!

Most of our partner museums can offer Arts Award at Discover or Explore Level linked into any of their workshops. In addition, some offer specific Arts Award visits:

Kirkleatham Museum offers a Discover in a Day on the Saxons – Kennings Riddles and Jewels.
Contact: Elizabeth.Vine@redcar-cleveland.gov.uk

The Dorman Museum offers a Discover or Explore Award on Christopher Dresser – the world renowned designer who worked in Middlesbrough at the Linthorpe Art Pottery.
Contact: Sue Sedgwick: Susan_Sedgwick@middlesbrough.gov.uk

Case Studies

Art installation within a school

Arts Award Discover - Captain Cook Birthplace Museum

"Arts Award as part of the museum learning offer has proven particularly popular with teachers over the last few years. Some are surprised that coming to a museum can be part of an Arts Award journey - but most of our museums hold artworks of some kind and art is a great way to engage and inspire children of all ages and abilities to learn more about history." Jenny Phillips, Learning Officer