Artsmark
Bringing learning to life through arts and culture
Arts & Media School Islington are to be commended for their ongoing commitment to arts and cultural activities for pupils. It is good to read how you are continuing to engage with over twenty partners including; Platform, Urdang Academy, Dance is an area of strength at the school, Big Creative Education, Italia Conti and STEM, to help inform pupils of future career choices within the arts and that creativity week is now a standing feature your school calendar. You have also developed cross curricular projects such as, Global Warming, where students have built a large whale to represent the effect of plastic consumption on our oceans, which has helped to both enhance pupils learning environment and understanding of these global issues. It is good to hear that you are sharing best practice, including the attending borough meetings and secondary school transition events, it would have been good to hear more about what impact this had on the schools that attended these meetings and the subsequent impact on pupil outcomes. Your partnership with Cubitt Art is developing well and you may wish to develop a bank of case studies which outline the positive impact on pupils learning. Although there have undoubtedly been some challenges over the past 2 years, including the Covid-19 Pandemic, you have continued to find creative solutions and identified ongoing areas of development in your Statement of Impact.
Congratulations on your Artsmark Gold Award!
The Music department has extremely high expectations of all students. The department consists of an experienced and highly reflective subject specialist, who has a specific interest in developing the creative use of ICT in order to improve musical outcomes. Students are systematically exposed to a knowledge-rich curriculum that reflects the diversity of musical tastes, preferences and experiences within our school community but also within the wider local, national and ultimately international society.
Gallery
Head of Music: Mr. Dow
Thank you, as always, to all the featured students for their resilience in investing hours of practice and dedication in perfecting their incredible performances and to our fantastic instrumental tutors for supporting and mentoring our aspiring musicians.
Science is a beautiful subject with close ties to the arts. The entire scientific process involves one thinking, discovering, reflecting and improving; all of which are key components in the arts.
At AMSI, we value and actively encourage the use of practicals in our teaching to ensure that all pupils are able to experience the scientific process firsthand in their journey of discovery.
The curriculum has been designed in such a way that every topic covered has at least one practical within it to facilitate this. We also incorporate a curriculum in which content is revisited to ensure all pupils are able to make outstanding progress and achieve their true potential; in line with every child a scholar.
Science News
Physical Education at AMSI has strong values that are key to sport and physical activity. We encourage our students to compete fairly and to develop a culture of teamwork and camaraderie. Our students explore differences in tactics and skills across sports and how these may differ between coaches and cultural preferences.
PE News
The Modern Foreign Languages Department at AMSI brings to our students the ability to recognise other cultures and understand others to better understand themselves. The aim is to build strong and reflective global citizens, capable of accepting, comprehending and empathising with cultural references and manifestations that are different than their own.
MFL News
The Maths department at AMSI has a mastery based maths curriculum, to ensure all students achieve in Maths. The school values and ethos of ‘Every child a scholar’ are pivotal in aiding the students to confidently achieve in Mathematics and believing that they ‘can do Maths’.
Maths News
The English faculty is a collaborative and creative department, driven by the pursuit of academic excellence. We are an innovative and supportive department who have high expectations for all our students and a relentless focus on pupil progress. The department consists of experienced subject specialists who are reflective practitioners that have an interest in pedagogy and a drive to improve the curriculum and outcomes for our students. We aim to provide students with a knowledge rich curriculum that reflects the diversity of voices and experiences within society. Our pedagogy is informed by current educational research and draws on cognitive science to maximise progress for every student.
English News
The Drama department is innovative and supportive of pupils and has high expectations of all pupils. The department consists of an experienced subject specialist who is a reflective practitioner and has an interest in pedagogy and a drive to improve the curriculum and outcomes. We aim to provide pupils with a knowledge rich curriculum that reflects the diversity of voices and experiences within society.
Drama News
The Dance Department at AMSI brings to our students the ability to recognise and celebrate other cultures through the medium of Dance. Every Dance scheme of work begins with a historical underpinning of the origins of that particular dance form. The aim is to build a culturally diverse curriculum that enriches students culturally and artistically. This in turn develops the cultural capital of students.
Dance values and acknowledges the importance of cross curricular learning so that students can make connections between subjects and see the value one subject has in another.
Dance News
We study a wide variety of Cultures, Times, Ideas and people in the Art curriculum. This is mapped across the 5 years. We offer extra curricular opportunities which link to our programme of study and broaden the students’ understanding of who can be successful in the Arts industry.
Good quality outcomes, sustained work and high skill level is an expectation. Clear annotation of well considered projects and development in student work is always facilitated.
Displays of impressive work within our school community are always evident.
Art News
AMSI are host to Block C – an innovative partnership with local arts organisation, Cubitt Artists, which sees our former woodwork classroom repurposed into four artist studios. This is a unique resource, enabling AMSI students and staff to collaborate with artists and gain insights into their creative practice.
Since our partnership began in 2018, we have delivered 10 projects, reaching over 230 students. These have included lunchtime carnival workshops, a holiday photography club, an extended placement in the Modern Foreign Language department, a student-led investigation into archives, and one-to-one studio sessions with young people who are accessing Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services.
In spring 2021, AMSI students were part of Remote Connections, a Cubitt project in which four artists and groups of Islington residents from different generations gathered online and in person. In addition to AMSI, these gatherings took place in an extra care setting, with community centres and from people’s living rooms.
Through conversations and creative experiments, the groups explored what helps them to feel connected with each other and themselves, with their surroundings, and across time, distance and generations.
You can read In the Making – a workbook produced from the project and see below for a short film that AMSI students made with artist Lydia CS.
Current resident artists:
Artist and educator Jasmin Bhanji grew up in North London attending a large comprehensive school before studying for her degree at Brighton University. She has since gained a PGCE and a Masters (UCL) in Art Education. She currently works with children and adults from Nursery to 90 years old, exploring opportunities for learning in contemporary art making and exhibitions. Jasmin has worked with many institutions and schools over her career including University of the Arts, Morley College, Whitechapel Gallery and Bow Arts.
One of Jasmin’s goals is to demystify art, artists, and processes. She aims to be open and clear about how she and others go about making art. In her own work, she is curious about the absences and omitted stories in the archives of art history. Considering herself a direct product of complex colonial and post-colonial histories, she acts as a magpie in the studio, accumulating and arranging layered imagery, images of artists, artefacts, and art materials to question the concept of ‘the artist’ and ‘the studio.’
Kaleidoworks / Betsy Dadd & Lydia CS
We work in various community settings with schools, galleries and public realm using the mediums of drawing, film, animation and sound in playful and accessible ways. Lydia CS explores narrative and poetry through moving-image. Betsy Dadd uses drawing and printing techniques to produce moving-image and devises ways to present digital film as projection installation. To us, participation is a kind of exchange – a means to adapt, share and collaborate – creating a feedback loop with our own studio practice. Through artist-led workshops, projects and residencies we hope to build meaningful relationships and make positive change.
Meera Shakti Osborne is an interdisciplinary art practitioner, youth worker and community organiser from North London. Meera’s work focuses on collective healing through creative self-expression. Their practice engages with accessibility and confidence building for marginalised people in both formal education settings and casual encounters.
Meera is interested in the use of art as a tool to create historical documents that represent feelings and the inbetween stuff that often gets left out of history making.
Meera has worked with Nottingham Contemporary, iniva, Newbridge Project, Royal College of Art, UAL, Peckham Platform, Focal Point Gallery, The Gap Arts Project, The Drawing Room and Reprezent FM. Meera graduated in Design at Central School of Speech and Drama in 2015 and Cairo Institute of Liberal Arts and Science in 2018.
Previous resident artists:
Maya Fineburg, Beautriz Marques Moreira Da Silva, Meriem Mecili, Zoe Horne & Isabella Furness, Central St Martins (CSM) BA (Hons) Fine Art students, on placement as part of their Diploma in Professional Studies, Levi Naidu-Mitchell, Esther McManus, Joe Namy, Janetka Platun, Schooling & Culture
About Cubitt Artists
Cubitt Artists is an artist-led cooperative based in Islington, North London, built on the belief in the value of art and artists in society. Established in 1992 and an Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation, we provide 32 affordable artist studios, a gallery, and a celebrated community-led arts programme which has reached over 12,000 young people, teachers and older people across the borough.
London Boys Ballet School
We would like to introduce one of our Creative Partnerships who are residents at the school:
Raising the Barre in Islington!
In September last year, the award winning ‘London Boys Ballet School’, (LBBS), relocated to Arts & Media School Islington. Having been featured in all major newspapers, radio, news stations and television, this school has set the standard high.
The relocation from smaller Central London premises has allowed this unique school the opportunity to expand its classes and teaching faculty, offering a level of male dance training that cannot be found elsewhere.
This is no ordinary Ballet School and the Director, Mr James Cunliffe, has brought in a faculty of teachers across all genres that would normally only be seen at prestigious full time Ballet and dance colleges and schools.
“We are creating a full-time dance training experience within a part-time school” says James.
The school which has already been awarded the ‘Dance School of The Year – Innovation’ presented by Anne Walker MBE and judged by Jonathan Gray, (Dancing Times), and Angela Rippon CBE, is also honoured to have Wayne Sleep OBE as its Ambassador.
In 2017, LBBS performed its first theatre production. This was no ordinary showcase and a tremendous success, connecting with the audience providing a wave of emotions as the impelling story unfolded.
The established and highly regarded school now offers classes in several styles of dance for boys aged 4-21yrs, but Director James didn’t want to stop there.
“Boys of all ages now have the full training, support and dance experience available at LBBS! I want to ensure that girls too have this level of options and access to an equally strong teaching faculty” says James.
LBBS opens its sister school the ‘London Ballet School’, (LBS), in March and will also be operating from the Arts & Media School Islington.
Both ‘London Boys Ballet School’ and ‘London Ballet School’ will be developing further classes at AMSI and are very excited about creating an exciting “arts hub” within the Islington area and local community.
The London Boys Ballet School (www.BoysBalletLondon.com)
The London Ballet School (www.LondonBalletSchool.com)
For both schools there is a special offer open to AMSI pupils interested in joining of 4 Free Classes as shown on the posters below.
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