Pupils at Greenmount School are enriched by arts and culture opportunities

This blog has been written in collaboration with Greenmount Primary, who prioritise cultural and creative arts experiences for their pupils. We are shining a light on the efforts of the school, in support of Child Friendly Leeds Wish 7.

Wish 7 – Children and young people know about things to do and places to go across the city. They enjoy different cultural experiences including art, music, sport and film.

Greenmount Primary School is a two-form entry school with most children speaking English as an additional language. Many of our children have family originally from Bangladesh and Pakistan and we have a higher-than-average amount of children who qualify for pupil premium. We know many of our families don’t access arts and cultural events and activities regularly, therefore we ensure we provide many opportunities for children to access cultural capital throughout their time here.

Trips

Greenmount have a great programme of enriching visits. We plan 2 trips a year for each year group and then subsidise the cost to families where appropriate to ensure equal access to arts and culture, as well as topping up with local walks. Examples of trips include museums, a trip to the beach, theatre and cinema trips. We also organise residential trips: one to a rural area and one to our capital city. The outcome has been that children feel they have opportunities to experience new places, and we inform parents about these great opportunities if they are also free.

Curriculum

As part of our curriculum, we have endeavoured to ensure the locality around Beeston is used to facilitate learning. The idea with localising our learning is for children to see themselves as being part of the culture they are living in. For example, our art curriculum uses a child-led photography topic, where children select different places around Beeston to create a collage. This has allowed children to present areas where they feel proud of, or know stories about, presented through open galleries.

Visits

Alongside providing an enriching curriculum, Greenmount have looked at a range of visitors and groups from the local area to be involved with the school. Local people and groups allow our children to see different careers, activities and events available to them. We recognise the importance of taking part in sports not only improves health and wellbeing but also develops the whole child, therefore working with Hunslet Club, we have brought coaches in for clubs and PE lessons to the children. Bravewords Theatre and Slung Low theatre groups have provided shows, workshops and assemblies to the school to further highlight local arts offers. IntoUniversity provide children with opportunities to find out about career pathways and we choose to explore arts careers as part of this.

Live music

The school hold Champion Music status

David Wilson, Creative Arts Curriculum Lead at Greenmount, ensures there are opportunities for children to take part in and experience live music during their time at Greenmount. Working with Artforms, the school has ensured there are no barriers to children who have an interest is following music through the inclusion of clubs, peripatetic lessons and singing in concerts (such as Young Voices and Leeds Youth Music Festival Concert) by subsidising costs when available. This had led to an increase in children accessing music in an area where barriers such as family income and cultural attitudes to music exist. The school hold Champion Music status due to their accessibility to music.