our free minds: an arts award centre
Arts Award: A Flexible Approach to a Recognised Qualification
Our Free Minds is now an Arts Award Centre with a trained Arts Advisor. This offers young people who choose to enroll on the course an opportunity to expand their creative development across all types of art and craft, and gain a recognised qualification in the process.
Arts Award ideology aligns well with Our Free Minds: Arts Award isn't about reaching a certain standard in a particular art form. Instead it assesses the knowledge, understanding, creativity, communication and leadership skills young people develop through exploring the arts as a participant, audience member and reviewer. There are no fixed entry requirements, no time limits and no rules on how to present work.
Arts Award in a nutshell:
- offers unique qualifications and learning opportunities to support young people's creative development
- reaches young people of all backgrounds, interests and abilities
- puts young people at the heart of the Arts Award process
- embraces all types of art and craft, including emerging art forms and technologies -from film-making to fashion design, pottery to poetry or even puppetry, young people can achieve Arts Award through any art, craft or cultural activity.
Through Arts Award, learners will achieve a national qualification that will build confidence through nurturing their individual interests, while also equipping them with life skills that will support their education and future employment.
What does the Arts Award entail?
To achieve their Arts Award, learners take on challenges in an art form, participate in arts activities, experience arts events, get inspired by artists and share their arts skills with others.
They create a portfolio to keep a record of their creative work and progress along the way, and they are supported by an adult, who has trained as an Arts Award adviser and acts as an assessor, facilitator and mentor.
Assessment is undertaken by the Arts Award Advisor, who will look for evidence of specific skillsets with the Arts demonstrated in the Learner's Portfolio.
There is an additional cost associated with undertaking the Arts Awards - for more information please contact us using the form at the bottom of this page.
two levels of award currently available at our free minds
Bronze Arts Award
Bronze Arts Award
Bronze Arts Award
- Bronze Arts Award enables learners to develop a basic understanding of arts practice and some knowledge of arts provision in the community.
- Learners commit to taking part in creative activities and demonstrate a basic understanding of effective communication and an ability to convey information.
- Learners create a personal arts log or portfolio containing evidence of their experiences. These arts logs or portfolios can be in any format, including digital.
- Designed for ages 11 to 14 and open to anyone aged 11 to 25.
- It's a Level 1 qualification on the Regulated Qualifications Framework (RQF) - this is equivalent to GCSE grade D-G/3-1
- It typically takes 40 guided learning hours and 20 independent learning hours to complete (60 hours total qualification time).
- For further details please download: The Bronze Award Specification.
Silver Arts Award
Bronze Arts Award
Bronze Arts Award
- Silver Arts Award gives young people the chance to take on an artistic challenge and a leadership role too. As well as being about creativity, it's about becoming a reviewer, researcher and project manager.
- There are two strands to Silver Arts Award – one focusing on artistic practice and the other on arts leadership. Completing both successfully requires teamwork and independence, creativity and critical thinking, leadership and collaboration, confidence and communication.
- Participants build a broad range of transferable skills as they complete their portfolio and gain a Level 2 qualification on the Regulated Qualifications Framework (RQF) - equivalent to a GCSE A*-C/9-4
- Designed for ages 14 to 16 and is open to anyone aged 11 to 25.
- It typically takes 60 guided learning hours plus 35 independent learning hours to complete (95 hours total qualification time).
- For further details please download: The Silver Award Specification.