Artsmark is the nationally recognised mark of excellence for schools delivering quality arts and cultural provision. Schools are recognised for their exceptional commitment to creativity with the Artsmark Award, accredited by Arts Council England– the only award for arts and culture provision in England! Schools can be awarded Silver, Gold or Platinum.

All the adults and pupils at Westmorland have been working hard on our goals over the past 2 years which you can read about in our Statement of Commitment:

We submitted our Statement of Impact in July 2024.

In October 2024 we were awarded GOLD award!

Well done everyone!

The Artstmark Assessor said:

Westmorland Primary School has taken a thematic approach to Artsmark. You have identified areas of improvement which fit with your overall school plan and conceived of ways the arts could help deliver those. These included Quality of Education, Behaviour and Attitudes and Personal Development. You built the quality of teaching and learning across these themes by capitalising on the arts. You prioritised staff training time, sharing arts education research and building your MORE (Memorable learning, Oracy, Reading, and Experiences) approach as an arts-rich process as part of your whole school ethos. The arts features regularly in curricular and non-curricular time. Art, Dance, and Music are timetabled weekly. Drama is integrated into cross-curricular learning. Your learners engage with a variety of art forms and materials, and now benefit from a £25,000 investment in stage technology, lighting, and equipment -another sign of your commitment to expanding and enriching the arts offer. Two areas from the Artsmark criteria that come through as clear strengths in your approach are Range of Offer and Cultural Collaborations. As well as the regular timetabled slots mentioned above, you have also built good links with the Whitworth Art Gallery, Stockport Art Gallery, The Hat Works, and Stockport Shapes. This provides additional resources and experiences and helps build better practice through participation in local subject networks, sharing best practices and accessing professional development opportunities.

You can see our certificate in the school office. There will be lots more opportunities for our pupils to thrive in Art, Music, Dance and Drama so we will keep on developing our amazing Arts offer!