Artsmark Platinum Award
We are incredibly proud that in October 2023 we were awarded Artsmark Platinum for the second time. Arts mark is a standard awarded by Arts Council England, which benchmarks the standard of arts and cultural provision in a school. Platinum is the highest level that can be achieved.
In their awarding Statement, the Arts Council said:
“Dagenham Park C of E school continues to strengthen its impressive work in the arts within and beyond the school. Insights from your evaluation of the impact of the pandemic have led you to deploy the arts to support pupils’ resilience and creativity across the curriculum. It is interesting that you have noted and responded to a decline in pupils’ confidence to exercise independence and choice in arts other than Art and Music where this is already deeply embedded in the pedagogy. The creative thinking developments across the curriculum, supported by CPD, will no doubt see a shift in this in the longer term, and you have already seen synergies developing between the arts and other subjects.
"You have used Drama CPD to support oracy, which had dipped post pandemic, and you have worked to restore the uptake of arts GCSEs. In your revised curriculum arrangements for KS3 you have protected the status of the arts subjects, although it would be wonderful to see Dance continuing to have timetabled time beyond Year 7. Your monitoring of the impact of provision on your pupils feeds your strategic approach and further developments in your data systems will allow you to identify and address issues of equity and engagement. You have an admirable commitment to student leadership, with student groups using their creativity in the arts to explore and give voice to issues that concern them and the wider community. It will be interesting to see how you can further develop your pupils’ agency in their arts learning, a key outcome in developing creative habits. It is not entirely clear how much your students are engaged in performance and how much they devise and deliver their own work in traditional and alternative art forms.
"Your outward facing work has continued despite the pandemic and has developed further. The list of your work with primary schools, your support of the LCEP and your contribution to strategic planning and development of the local cultural ecology is exemplary and is clearly improving teachers’ skills and children’s lives within and beyond your borough. You are impacting some schools’ curriculum design and you are making digital resources widely available. It is excellent that you are to share your work on e.g. developing a school arts council and running a multi-school multi-arts event with associated resources. Your work is to be shared on the Creativity Exchange and in the forthcoming PBBD Cultural Conference. We look forward greatly to hearing how you continue to develop your advocacy, influence and impact beyond the school while ensuring that the arts play their full part in your own students’ learning and lives.”
Resources to support other schools with their Artsmark journey/Arts provision
