We are delighted to announce that we have been awarded the silver Artsmark award!

The feedback from the assessors was full of praise of our commitment to developing drama and performance across our curriculum:

'Your first cycle of Artsmark activity has seen you significantly grow your drama provision and you have had some great successes. You enhanced drama provision by collaborating with Kala Sangam, the intercultural arts hub in Bradford. This aligned with your multicultural school’s ambitions too. CPD for staff was provided to enabled more drama across curriculum. Kala Sangam also provided an after-school drama club which was quickly oversubscribed. The result of this partnership has been a boost to teacher confidence, and seeing how drama influenced practices can enhance learning in other subjects. Children are learning with enthusiasm and finding activities fun and engaging which is motivating for them and their teachers. And parents are reacting positively to the end-of-year performances in real theatre spaces."

Mrs Cieloch and Miss Atkinson, who had huge responsibility of applying for the award, coordinating the work in school and completing the meetings and paperwork said, "We are delighted that our hard work and that of all the staff has paid off. When we set off on our Artsmark journey we wanted to enhance our oracy commitment to include a focus on performance as we wanted to widen the audience for the chidlren's oracy activity. Performance is now such a large part of what we do at Penny Oaks and we are delighted to have just completed another set of end-of-year productions at the Bradford Playhouse."