We’re delighted to introduce our new Arts Award resources, free to download for any The Culture Challenge project for pupils undertaking Arts Award Discover!

The Culture Challenge are pleased to offer for use our very own bespoke Arts Award Discover portfolio which is available for use by Arts Award Advisors who would like to use The Culture Challenge as a basis for undertaking the Arts Award Discover Qualification. You can download a copy here to see what it contains. To request a non-watermarked copy please email Kaytej@bedfordcreativearts.org.uk letting her know which group of students you will be using it with. Please note that while we can provide the portfolio for free the qualification does incur costs that you will need to pay when registering your students with Arts Award. If you would like our help in running Arts Award please do drop us a line and we can provide you with a quote.

The Culture Challenge supports the Arts Award qualification with many of our providers trained as both Arts Award Supporters and Advisors – simply look for the Arts Award logo next to the cultural providers in the Directory listing.

The mission behind Arts Award is to support young people who want to deepen their engagement with the arts, build creative and leadership skills, and to achieve a national qualification. As part of the Award, young people take on creative challenges, participate in arts activities, meet artists and share their arts skills with others.

The qualification is considered especially useful for helping young people investigate a wide range of art forms, with an emphasis on monitoring their own progress. It’s easy to see how working with the diverse range of cultural providers we have across Bedford, Luton and Milton Keynes, pupils have the opportunity to engage with a huge variety of art forms and heritage projects on their doorstep, and the Arts Award activity can even help schools meet the criteria for Artsmark.

The award builds confidence, helps young people to enjoy cultural activities, and prepares them for further education or employment. The four main activities of Arts Award Discover enable students to discover the arts around them, experience taking part in an arts activity, find out about artists and their work and finally share and reflect on their experiences with others.

The Arts Award qualification is about evaluation, reflection and confidence building, allowing thoughts to be recorded in a variety of ways. The design of our new The Culture Challenge booklet celebrates self expression, with plenty of room for drawing, photography and other forms of documenting the creative journey. We hope that young people can find a channel to express themselves that they feel comfortable with, and grow in confidence when their creative skills earn them a recognised qualification.