Arts Award supports children and young people to develop as artists and arts leaders. It is designed to inspire children and young people aged up to 25 to enjoy the arts, offering the chance to develop creativity, communication and leadership skills, and get recognised through national qualifications.

Arts Award is a national programme. In England, it is managed by Trinity College London in association with Arts Council England.

There is a fee of £14.50 for those wishing to complete their Arts Award Explore with BCMG. This covers the cost of the moderation and the award certificate – no payment is required until participants have completed their Arts Award.

In this resource you will find all the information you need to complete Arts Award Explore remotely, from home. Arts Award Explore is the next award up from Arts Award Discover. It is aimed at children aged 7+. For those children at the younger end, we strongly encourage you to start with Arts Award Discover. 

Arts Award Explore gives young people the opportunity to explore the arts in four sections:

• Part A: Inspire - take part in online arts activities that inspire you to be creative, such as our 'Composing Activities for Children'
• Part B: Explore - explore BCMG’s website, online resources and find out more about other Arts organisations
• Part C: Create - create music to demonstrate their arts skills and creativity through our 'Composing Activities for Children'
• Part D: Present – reflect on your Arts Award experience and share your work with others. 

An Explore Arts Award is around about a full week’s activity. Most likely, this is spread out across a number of days and/or weeks.

If you would like to do Arts Award Explore with BCMG remotely CLICK HERE to send us a sign up email.

You can pay your Arts Award Explore fee HERE.

To help record your Arts Award we have created a logbook which you can download below. The logbook can be downloaded at the bottom of this page as either a word document or PDF which can be printed off and completed by hand. Fill in each section of the logbook as you go.

CLICK HERE for the PDF of the logbook

CLICK HERE for the Word version of the logbook

Once you have completed Sections A, B and C, you can share your logbook remotely with a member of BCMG's Learning Team, via social media or with someone at home. Sharing your Arts Award logbook and writing about the experience will complete Section D.

Whilst you can complete much of your Arts Award Explore through the activities and resources BCMG offer, you will need to do some further exploring!

On one of the pages of this resource you will find  a list of other arts organisations that can offer a wide range of digital experiences and activities. We will try to keep these listings as up-to-date as possible. This list can also be found at the back of your Explore Logbook.

The BCMG Learning Team will be available to offer support throughout – simply email learning@bcmg.org.uk to get in touch.

Activity 1:

Select and take part in one of BCMG's Composing Music at Home activities CLICK HERE to find them.

Take some photos of yourself taking part in the activity or ask someone at home to help you. If you can't take pictures you can draw a picture of yourself taking part instead!

Activity 2:

Now choose a different non-BCMG arts activity. This could be something creative you took part in at school or an arts activity you have already completed whilst being at home. Or you could use one of the ideas or activities  offered by the other arts organisations listed on the next page. 

Completing your log book:

You can now complete Section A in your logbook. You will need to fill in the following sections (Pages 5-8 in your logbook):

• Tell us about what you had to do in your chosen arts activities
• Tell us what you have learnt
• Tell us about the part you enjoyed the most and why
• Tell us what you are most proud of

Add the photos and/or drawings of you taking part in Activities 1 and 2 to your log book. To finish this section you need to include a link for your recording.  Send us a recording of your music (WAV or MP3 file). Audacity is free software that allows you to record and edit your music. CLICK HERE to download it.

As well as doing one of BCMG composing activities, the INSPIRE section of Arts Award Explore wants you to be inspired by other art, dance, theatre, music, books and take part in other arts activity. Many arts and media organisations also have digital arts activities you can take part in. Here are just a few:

The Tate Gallery CLICK HERE

The BBC's Ten Pieces CLICK HERE

The Metropolitan Museum of Arts CLICK HERE

Or doodle with illustrator Mo Willems CLICK HERE

Another really good place to visit on the internet to help you with this section is Google Arts and Culture CLICK HERE. This site allows you to visit museums and art galleries around the world. You could:

• Paint or draw a self portrait in the style of particular artist
• Write a story or poem in response to a drawing, painting or sculpture or an item from a museum
• Draw an animal like Picasso
• Explore colour like Kandinsky
• Create a landscape inspired by Van Gogh or Lowry
• Find a sculpture you like a replicate by junk modelling
• Choreograph a dance in response to a drawing, painting or sculpture or an item from a museum
• Recreate a scene from a painting with things you find around your house and take a photo of it. 

The Fantastic for Families website lists a wide range of excellent activities created by other arts organisations for you to try at home CLICK HERE. 

There are also many orchestras and concert halls sharing concerts including:

The Berlin Philharmonic Digital Concert Hall CLICK HERE.

The Royal Albert Home CLICK HERE.

You could create drawings, paintings, dance and creative writing in response to music you hear.

REMEMBER to record what you have done in words, photos and/or drawings.

Image: Clive Barda

In this part of Arts Award Explore you will need to do some research about BCMG. You can do this by visiting our main website HERE.

Activity 1:

Fill in the Part B section of your logbook with things you have learnt about BCMG as an arts organisation. You can find the following questions in your logbook (Pages 9 & 10).

1. What does BCMG stand for?
2. Tell us three interesting facts about BCMG
3. Which building is the home of BCMG?
4. Tell us something interesting about this building
5. What sort of activities do BCMG do
6. What sorts of arts professionals work at BCMG?

Activity 2:

Now you need to imagine you are a reporter. We will be recording Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions with some of our musicians and staff in the coming weeks. This will give you the chance to ask questions about their different roles at BCMG. To have your questions included in the session, please email them to learning@bcmg.org.uk. You can then complete the following parts in your logbook (page 11).

1. Which musician or member of BCMG staff will you be interviewing?
2. What three questions will you ask this person about their role in BCMG?

You can watch all the AMA sessions HERE. Write down the answers to your questions. To give you an idea of the types of questions you could ask, have a look at our AMA  Question Sheet HERE and below. What else did you learn about this person's role at BCMG?

Draw a picture or find a photo of the person you interviewed. There is space on Page 11 for you to do this.

Activity 3:

You will also need to explore some other arts organisations online. You can choose one that you may already be familiar with or you can find out about another arts organisation listed earlier on in the resource. Complete Page 12 of your logbook.

Activity 1:

Choose a different activity from our Composing Music at Home CLICK HERE or Composing Music at Home (Instrumentalists) CLICK HERE free resources and create your own piece of music. For the Instrumentalists resource you will need access to a pitched instrument or a music app that plays pitches/different notes.

Get somebody at home to take photos of you creating your music and save any draft recordings of work, drawings or notes you may have used to make your final composition.

Make a recording of the music you created. You will need to provide us with either a link to the music or music file (WAV or MP3). Audacity is free software that allows you to record and edit your music. CLICK HERE to download it.

Send the recording of your piece of music to learning@bcmg.org.uk – we will put it on our website for people to listen to!

Activity 2:

Now you need to tell us about the piece of music you created in your logbook (pages 13 & 14):

• How did you create your music? Use the online resource to remind you how you went about composing your piece.
• What does it sound like?
• Tell us about the different types of sounds you chose to use and why
• What do you like about your music and why?
• What are you most proud of and why?

Draw a picture of yourself making your piece or use any photos you may have taken during the process and add these to your logbook.

Now you have completed your Arts Award there’s just one thing left to do – share your work and what you have learnt with others!

Think about what you needed to do to complete each section of your Arts Award Explore. In the Section D part of your logbook (Pages 15 -17) write about:

• What you are most proud of in your Arts Award
• What you enjoyed most about your Arts Award
• What you found the most challenging when completing your Arts Award
• All the new skills you have learnt over the time it has taken you to complete your Arts Award

Now you need to share your Arts Award with someone and tell them what you learnt, what you enjoyed and what you found challenging. This can be done in person with a family member at home or a member of our BCMG learning team via video.

Write a few sentences in your Arts Award logbook about:

• What you shared
• Who you shared your Arts Award with
• When you shared your Arts Award
• How you share your Arts Award

Finally all you need to do is ask the person you shared your Arts Award with to write a few sentences about the sharing. They can do this on Page 16 in your logbook.

On the next page we explain what to happens after you have completed your Arts Award logbook.

Once you have completed all four sections of your Arts Award Explore logbook you will need to do the following things:

Save your work clearly - make sure your name is in the file name when you save it. If you have lots of different types of files (such as images, sound recordings. videos and word documents) please save all of this work in a folder called: Arts Award Explore *Your Name* and clearly label each file so we know which section it belongs to.

Send your work to BCMG's learning team. The best way to do this is via email.

Now you can pay for your Arts Award Explore moderation. CLICK HERE to pay your £16 fee.

You may find that once you send your work to the learning team, someone may get in touch. This could be about making slight changes or sending missing work. Please don't worry if this happens - we are just here to help and want to make sure you get the Arts Award you deserve! Submit any changes you make via email.

Relax! You've done all the hard work and do not need to do anything else.

When you receive your certificate, please send us a photo of you holding up your certificate! We would love to share your success far and wide on our social media platforms.