Artsmark Award

We are very proud to have been awarded Artsmark Gold by Arts Council England in recognition of the high standards of arts provision and attainment at Drapers Pyrgo Priory.  With consideration to our ambitious, comprehensive arts curriculum, in-house expertise, a great range of extra-curricular opportunities and excellent facilities such as a dedicated ceramics room with large kiln, the awarding body wrote: 

There is no doubt the Arts are very firmly embedded at Pyrgo, they run through everything. Curriculum design is clearly a strength. The development of the new knowledge rich curriculum with curriculum maps indicating links between subjects and the arts and the use of knowledge organisers for every art and music unit places the Arts at the heart of the curriculum. Applying your meta-cognition approach of lesson sequencing in art – planning, preparation, creating and evaluating are resulting in greater progress being made by children in art. This is great. Using the Arts to support your recovery curriculum and to improve attendance serves to illustrate not only the high value you place on the Arts but also the philosophy that the Arts are not a bolt on but an essential part of the curriculum. The high value you place in developing leadership of subject leaders by giving them time, support and CPD and involving external creative practitioners (prior to lock-down) is having a positive impact on developing staff's subject knowledge.