We are part of the Artsmark family. We are working towards our Artsmark Award.

Our Statement of Commitment 

About Artsmark

Benefits to children

• culture and creativity increases pupils’ confidence, critical and creative thinking, communication and literacy skills, improving attainment in core subjects like Maths and English 

• introduces the joys of creating and performing and experiencing art to young people who may not otherwise be exposed to it

• helps encourage pupil voice and leadership skills

• provides an engaging and accessible way into the curriculum for hard to reach or disadvantaged pupils 

We have submitted our case study.

Children are now ambassadors for Arts and Culture. They are actively involved supporting the development of Arts and Culture provision and widely recognised by other schools, visitors, Arts organisations for being articulate, knowledgeable, creative and demonstrate a high standard in Art work, Creative Writing, Poetry, Drama and Music achieving regularly prestigious awards at local, national and international level.

Curriculum design is now bespoke, inclusive, relevant, responsive, diverse, unique and influential, including SMSC, BV and Diversity now at its core. We now provide a broad range of authentic, exciting, artistic and relevant experiences which has fuelled creative imagination and fostered an appreciation of different approaches to the Arts through; regular Arts and Culture educational visits, projects linked to local, national, world events or initiatives. 

Being exciting, inspiring and engaging is seen in outstanding teaching and learning driven by specialist teachers.  We offer extensive Arts provision including a wide ranging Arts based extra curricular programme, (Music, Dance, Art, Drama), educational visits, partnered projects with other schools and arts organisations. Pupils’ success and achievement in multi-disciplinary art forms is now a template for good practice for other schools.

Developing partnerships has been pivotal to support a rich, unique high quality Arts and Culture education. We are proud that these organisations now invite us to collaborate on resources for Arts and educational sectors. The Arts Leader is part of the Diversity and Inclusion labs, working with a wide range of Arts Organisations sharing her expertise in Primary Arts Education. 

What other schools and Arts organisations say.

I just wanted to drop you an email this morning on behalf of Lizzy and myself about how much we enjoyed the Arts Exhibition last night. We were really impressed with how articulate Eva, our Y6 guide, was in talking about all the art work, not just her own year group and the pride and excitement that was emanating from all the children in sharing their work. What Oatlands does is really special and we’re proud to play a small part in that.

With very best wishes, 

Hannah Draper

Head of Education

Harrogate Theatre

IVE invites Oatlands to share their story on Artsmark and Arts Award

Click on the link to read about us.

IVE has been sharing stories of outstanding Arts Award and Artsmark practice in schools (two different programmes created by Arts Council England that compliment and build upon each other). Oatlands was identified as an outstanding example to others, of how you can provide children with great arts and cultural experiences and demonstrating an excellent commitment to the arts. IVE is a social enterprise that is working to ensure a more creative future for businesses, teachers, children and young people. IVE supports the development of creativity as a transferable skill to improve employability and productivity. They connect young people with great cultural opportunities and aim to inspire the next generation of creative and culturally literate entrepreneurs.

Please read our story on the link above.

Dear Miss Joseph

I hope you are well and you’ve had a great start to the term!

I am just contacting you because we have identified your school as a great example to others, of how you can successfully provide students with great arts and cultural experiences. We noticed that you have, or are, engaging with both Artsmark and Arts Award and believe that the combination of both of these programmes is a real achievement and demonstration of commitment to the arts.

I wonder if you would be happy for us to spread the word about good practice and provide us with a few quotes about how Arts Award and Artsmark in particular have had an impact on your school and young people. We would like to have a week of sharing stories and successes and would most likely include this on our social media channels and blogs.Many thanks in advance and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Best wishes,

Charlotte

Charlotte Brook

Project Support Officer

North and East Yorkshire

IVE 31 The Calls, Leeds, LS2 7EY

T. 0113 322 3050

M.07841 336 658

Email. charlotte@weareive.org

www.weareIVE.org

Pupil Leadership in the Arts

Contemporary Dance Club by Tegan, Jasmine and Olivia ( Choreographers)

A moving dance performance at the Arts Exhibition evening 12th June in honour of the victims of the  Grenfell Towers tragedy.  The dance interpreted how different communities come together in times of tragedy.  An outstanding performance by all the children.

Tegan, Jasmine and Olivia have been choreographing a dance in honour of the victims of the Grenfell Towers which is being performed at the Arts Exhibition and on the eve of the anniversary of the tragic disaster last year. Children across all years took part in this club across the Summer Term developing dance techniques by our experienced Year 6 girls who take part in Dance and Theatre groups outside of school. Well done for running, 

planning and choreographing a high quality dance club at lunchtime for children to take part in. You are inspirational.

Jack’s Musical Theatre Group

Harrogate Competitive Festival for Music, Speech and Drama - Oatlands Junior School Choir by Jack Brierley.

Lunchtime choir club led by Jack Brierley who has been working with members of a choir selected at an audition held in January. Over the last two months Jack has been working with the choir to prepare for the HCFMSD held in March. Members of the choir; Liberty, Eve, Sophie, Emma, Phoebe, Amina, Leila, Kathryn, Olivia and Florence.

Art Club run by Year 6 children for lower school

Wednesday Art Club organised and led by Sophie and Elsa in Year 6 for children in Year 3 & 4.

Sophie and Elsa recycled canvases to create abstract acrylic paintings focusing on colour and movement using a piece of string with their Art Club members. These will be for sale in the Arts Exhibition 12th June 2018.

Pupil Led Activities

Arts Committee 

(see our Arts Committee page)

Arts Committee members from Year 3 - Year 6 help support the following;

Arts Week

OJS Arts Exhibition

Develop workshop resources for the Mercer Gallery

Collaborate with Arts Organisations

Music Concert

Carol Concert

Christmas display theme

Developing pupil led arts clubs

Arts Committee meets regularly to develop and discuss ideas for the provision of the arts and all arts events working with Miss Joseph and Mrs Grimer.

Miss Joseph’s Art Club

Art Club members are creating a wall mural outside the library painting some of their favourite books.

Working with arts organisations

This year saw Oatlands Junior School Year 6 children take part in Folly! Architecture Design Competition with the National Trust at Fountains Abbey. We submitted an application form to take part in this and were pleased to be accepted. Ruth Donnelly from Doma Architectscame to visit us and provided a wonderful workshop to learn how Architects work and to design a new folly at Fountains Abbey. We were also joined by Emma Manners the Educational Officer from the National Trust at Fountains Abbey on the day. Children learnt how to draw to scale and were inspired by contemporary and classical architecture shown by Ruth. A fantastic opportunity for children to work with a real architect. Good news followed as three of our children won prizes ( see our achievements section of Arts at OJS) and they are also invited to a prize giving event in May at Fountains Abbey which we are looking forward to. All of our children really enjoyed the experience, learning about Architects and their wonderful creative and innovative buildings. 

See how our Folly project evolved in Curriculum- Art previous to entering and after as we created concept Watercolour paintings soon to be exhibited in our Arts Exhibition Tuesday June 12th.

What organisations say

Doma Architects Ruth Donnelly - North Yorkshire Society of Architects and National Trust - Folly!  Competition

Dear Miss Joseph

Thank you so much for inviting me to present the architectural workshop to your year 6 pupils.

The children were so incredibly enthusiastic, which was wonderful to see. They were all quiet during the presentation, engaged with the presentation material and were keen to answer any questions asked. All pupils were full of enthusiasm during the design task, and created numerous designs in the 15 minutes given. I was particularly impressed to see them discuss their ideas with each other.  They all picked up on the scale task and translated this into the secondary design task when they drew their design on the template. Scale is quite an arbitrary thing, so it was very impressive that they picked up on it so quickly.

Pupils were very keen to share their designs with the class at the end of the session, and expressed their ideas very clearly, illustrating very good communication skills. Most architects would not have done as well!  The pupils had some wonderful ideas, and I cannot wait to see their competition entries.

I understand today is National Teacher’s day, and I just wanted to say a big thank you to you, for your incredible enthusiasm. I am absolutely certain one of the main reasons that the children were so well behaved and enthusiastic was because you introduced the pupils to the project themes in advance of the workshop’.

Kind regards
 
ruth donnelly
BA(hons) BArch(hons) DipPPM ARB RIBA
RIBA National Councillor 2015-2018

Working in Collaboration with Artists