It has recently been reported that the proportion of young people taking their Arts Award qualifications inside an arts or cultural organisation has increased by 12% over the past four years, with more arts organisations participating in the award scheme. Research has shown the scheme is nurturing specific skills and encouraging an entrepreneurial spirit in the young people who take it, showing great benefit to its instatement.
Almost a third of all awards have been taken in arts and cultural settings since 2012, which is an overall increase of 18%, as the Award is now clearly recognised as a valuable qualification which offers young people tangible benefits. Feedback from both teachers and arts professionals has demonstrated how important the Arts Award is to young people’s lives. The Arts Award has provided motivation, opportunities to reflect on learning, and definite examples of artistic excellence which often go unrecognised for young people by formal assessment structures.
Arts Awards were set up in 2005 to support young people to grow as artists and arts leaders, and connect with the wider arts world by undertaking challenges in an art form. The growth of workplace-based delivery of the awards has been put down to the popularity of two newly introduced strands of the scheme, created to link different art forms to every life and allow young people to experience arts organisations through exploration and discovery.
Researchers recently found that the strongest impact of taking the award was on developing young people’s skills in areas such as communication, organisation and leadership, and also reported that taking the Gold Award within an arts organisation helped to secure creative opportunities and paid work. Despite this, the efficacy of the Arts Award relies upon contextual factors, such as how the student is doing in other studies, where in the country they are studying the award, and whether they have a high or low level of exposure to culture outside of the Arts Award system.