Who doesn’t love a Banksy cushion?
Banksy Cushion by Niomi
Kibble Education and Care Centre is Scotland’s specialist provider of services for young people at risk. Based in Paisley, they run a secure school, an open school and also lead on a variety of enterprise projects under the banner, Kibbleworks, including the award winning go-kart track, The Experience.
In the summer we moderated at Bronze and Explore levels and certificated Discovers for the first time. The work was of a fabulously high standard, including one particularly memorable Arts Inspiration for Bronze where a young person had researched the life and work of Banksy, then printed what she found out onto fabric and turned it into a cushion.
Sarah from See Think Make interviewed Laura Cairns, head of expressive arts in the open school and Sarah Falconer, Social Enterprise Co-ordinator and leader of textiles in Kibbleworks.
Why did you run Arts Award?
For us, it was the lack of qualifications that were about that suited our young people. The good thing about Arts Award is that it’s so cross curricula, and, as we have young people in 3 parts of the company: the safe centre, education and KibbleWorks, there’s a timeline for some young people through all three of those, perhaps within 6 months, so starting a qualification and being able to do parts in different places is great.
When working in the open school, a lot of the SQA Nationals [equivalent to GCSE’s in England and Wales] don’t suit us in terms of expressive arts. For example, in music, a child might come to us in 4th year having never played an instrument and if they wanted to do National 4 or National 5 they need to play two instruments so it was putting too much pressure on them. We have had some children who have not coped at all in other subjects, but in the expressive arts they have engaged well.
In the safe centre, it suits because some children are in for relatively short periods of time, they have a reduced range of subjects, so they may see the art teacher 3 times a day so she was able to use Arts Award well in that context.
Overall, Arts Award is an integral part of our wider achievement programme. We’re not governed by timelines, unlike SQA when there are set deadlines for assessment materials and exams. With Arts Award we can start and finish whenever we want and that suits our young people.
We also work cross art form. A lot of the children here who buy into music will also buy into art and drama. We also have Scottish Ballet visiting each year which many buy into too. We’re lucky and it’s something that makes us unique is that we can have visiting artists coming in. It adds those positive connections and real experiences of the creative industries.
What did you do?
For a while our young people just absolutely loved making cushions, and we’ve got a printer that can easily print onto fabric quite nicely so it was mixing some graphic design and textiles. It used to be a last half hour killer to quickly make a cushion. And that was why that young person said “hey can I put my banksy stuff on a cushion2 [that she researched for her Part C Arts Inspiration in Bronze]. So that was a lovely combination of using the skills they learnt [in part A] for another part of the award.
What impact has running Arts Award had at Kibble?
For one individual, she never maintained concentration in the classroom to gain a qualification before, so this was a first and really significant for her. Ideally the Awards would give pupils SCQF credits – that would really work for us.
One individual really enjoyed meeting a glass artist who came in. She told everyone about it and got more out of it that we had anticipated. She struggles with confidence, so to see her interact so positively with a stranger was amazing.
For one of our projects, the art teacher brought in some of her own work. She’s really modest so she wouldn’t normally show her work, but for those young people who were researching artists for their Explore, to see that they were being taught by an artist was really powerful.
We have also had a lot of interest in other schools, so the word is spreading!
How did you celebrate?
We had a KOSCARS ceremony, which was black tie, with a red carpet. That really raised the profile of the Arts Awards. Many didn’t know much about them, so that was a really good chance for Expressive Arts department to show the rest of the school what the awards were all about, about the parts and what can be achieved.
Any challenges?
When we were working towards moderation, we could see how much work goes into making the portfolios robust. The moderator did say we did more than we needed to, but it was our first time. With us working with smaller numbers this was achievable, but might be difficult with larger classes.
Do you have any tips or advice to Arts Award Advisers who are about to start delivery?
Allocate a member of staff who is trained in Arts Award, so that there is someone where to collate the photos and scribe if necessary.
Now we’ve had our first year of working through the awards, we would work differently. I already know one young person has already completed two parts of her Bronze without knowing she has started. Once you’ve done it once, it gets lots easier.
Getting to know what artists are in the local area, makes the experience more real for the children. With the hook of arts award, it is easier asking people to come in and talk about their life and work as an artist.
In the summer we moderated at Bronze and Explore levels and certificated Discovers for the first time. The work was of a fabulously high standard, including one particularly memorable Arts Inspiration for Bronze where a young person had researched the life and work of Banksy, then printed what she found out onto fabric and turned it into a cushion.
Sarah from See Think Make interviewed Laura Cairns, head of expressive arts in the open school and Sarah Falconer, Social Enterprise Co-ordinator and leader of textiles in Kibbleworks.
Why did you run Arts Award?
For us, it was the lack of qualifications that were about that suited our young people. The good thing about Arts Award is that it’s so cross curricula, and, as we have young people in 3 parts of the company: the safe centre, education and KibbleWorks, there’s a timeline for some young people through all three of those, perhaps within 6 months, so starting a qualification and being able to do parts in different places is great.
When working in the open school, a lot of the SQA Nationals [equivalent to GCSE’s in England and Wales] don’t suit us in terms of expressive arts. For example, in music, a child might come to us in 4th year having never played an instrument and if they wanted to do National 4 or National 5 they need to play two instruments so it was putting too much pressure on them. We have had some children who have not coped at all in other subjects, but in the expressive arts they have engaged well.
In the safe centre, it suits because some children are in for relatively short periods of time, they have a reduced range of subjects, so they may see the art teacher 3 times a day so she was able to use Arts Award well in that context.
Overall, Arts Award is an integral part of our wider achievement programme. We’re not governed by timelines, unlike SQA when there are set deadlines for assessment materials and exams. With Arts Award we can start and finish whenever we want and that suits our young people.
We also work cross art form. A lot of the children here who buy into music will also buy into art and drama. We also have Scottish Ballet visiting each year which many buy into too. We’re lucky and it’s something that makes us unique is that we can have visiting artists coming in. It adds those positive connections and real experiences of the creative industries.
What did you do?
For a while our young people just absolutely loved making cushions, and we’ve got a printer that can easily print onto fabric quite nicely so it was mixing some graphic design and textiles. It used to be a last half hour killer to quickly make a cushion. And that was why that young person said “hey can I put my banksy stuff on a cushion2 [that she researched for her Part C Arts Inspiration in Bronze]. So that was a lovely combination of using the skills they learnt [in part A] for another part of the award.
What impact has running Arts Award had at Kibble?
For one individual, she never maintained concentration in the classroom to gain a qualification before, so this was a first and really significant for her. Ideally the Awards would give pupils SCQF credits – that would really work for us.
One individual really enjoyed meeting a glass artist who came in. She told everyone about it and got more out of it that we had anticipated. She struggles with confidence, so to see her interact so positively with a stranger was amazing.
For one of our projects, the art teacher brought in some of her own work. She’s really modest so she wouldn’t normally show her work, but for those young people who were researching artists for their Explore, to see that they were being taught by an artist was really powerful.
We have also had a lot of interest in other schools, so the word is spreading!
How did you celebrate?
We had a KOSCARS ceremony, which was black tie, with a red carpet. That really raised the profile of the Arts Awards. Many didn’t know much about them, so that was a really good chance for Expressive Arts department to show the rest of the school what the awards were all about, about the parts and what can be achieved.
Any challenges?
When we were working towards moderation, we could see how much work goes into making the portfolios robust. The moderator did say we did more than we needed to, but it was our first time. With us working with smaller numbers this was achievable, but might be difficult with larger classes.
Do you have any tips or advice to Arts Award Advisers who are about to start delivery?
Allocate a member of staff who is trained in Arts Award, so that there is someone where to collate the photos and scribe if necessary.
Now we’ve had our first year of working through the awards, we would work differently. I already know one young person has already completed two parts of her Bronze without knowing she has started. Once you’ve done it once, it gets lots easier.
Getting to know what artists are in the local area, makes the experience more real for the children. With the hook of arts award, it is easier asking people to come in and talk about their life and work as an artist.