Manifesting Art in Schools to create well-rounded learners

This has the mission of empowering you to use a range of art related strategies across your school so that you can holistically work with others in a cross-curricular way to help to raise standards in teaching, learning and well-being. In particular this course focuses on the concept of building student transferable skills (such as communication, reflection, questioning, resilience etc), creativity and creative thinking and importantly through visual literacy and mindfulness- all using tried and tested techniques and strategies not usually seen outside of a typical art room. There will be methods of artistic techniques discussed throughout the course however these can be used by non-specialists making them accessible to anyone who works in your school. You will consider what happens in and out of the classroom and be introduced to ideas for taking art beyond your school site. This course has been designed to inspire, support and engage you with practical strategies so you can purposefully and authentically 'Manifest Art' across your school for greater good.

The resources that accompany this course have been specially created and reinforce the value for money that this course offers. There are very few-if any- similar CPD courses out there and in most cases these courses, not only are they usually double the price, they require time out of school meaning staff need to arrange cover work and miss out teaching their classes. This course gives you the opportunity to do things at your own pace- you may wish to take things section by section implementing new ideas and strategies in your school as you go or you may prefer to complete the course in one go and formulate your own plan from there. It doesn't matter if you are a specialist or non specialist teacher, support staff or a senior leader- you just need to be willing to want to make positive changes in your school and be open minded to see how art can help you to facilitate this!

The sections for this course are presented as follows:

1. An introduction to the course and an opportunity for you to reflect on the existing situation for art within your school as well as considering perceptions and misconceptions of 'art' and 'artists'. The goal of this section is to get you thinking about art being something that should manifest beyond an art room and across the whole school. You will consider art as more than just a subject or relating solely to techniques as art in intrinsic with creative thinking, visual literacy and an appreciation of the world and culture around us.

2. In section 2 we will cover benefits of art and why it is crucial for developing the whole, well rounded learners that as schools we aspire to create.

3. In section 3 we will cover cross-curricular strategies to raise the profile of art school wide. These will include ideas for different subjects including core, STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Maths) as well as opportunities for consideration outside of lessons.

4. In section 4 we will look at using art for stretch and challenge. It is recommended that this is looked as something of importance for all students and not just the 'more able' learners. In particular, there is a focus on using questioning skills that can benefit any subject or topic of learning.

5. Section 5 covers art for confidence. There will be strategies for consideration that can benefit students with learning difficulties as well as those who need to develop more of a 'growth mindset'.

6. Art for well-being is covered in section 6 and includes many practical downloadable resources to use. There is a particular focus on art for mindfulness techniques- something that can particularly benefit students struggling to cope with Covid 19, emotions, thoughts and feelings and notably exam stress.

7. A whole school approach is the focus for section 7. How can you successfully work to get the school team on board with you? Practical resources are provided to help your facilitation of this including slides to use in assemblies and for staff meetings/CPD.

8. The final part is section 8 where we will bring the course to a conclusion along with bonus materials to help set you up with your own mission to manifest art in schools. This section includes a bonus lecture focusing on creative careers.

Other points to note:

• This course has been written from a UK perspective (therefore it uses UK spelling and terminology!) however the majority of the content will be transferable to schools outside of the UK. Anything that is exclusively for UK educators will be clearly marked, usually as 'bonus' content.

• I have curated many web links that support the topics covered in this course. Please be aware that by providing these links I am in no way affiliated with the sites in question, they are merely there for further interest and reading should you wish to reflect more on the topics covered in that specific lecture. Although I have done my best to ensure every link is working I cannot be responsible for changes at the end of the link. Should any link stop working, please let me know so I can remove it. If you have any links to suggest for the benefit of other students please message me and I will include them in future course updates!

• Please ask questions in the Q&A section. Responses will be endeavoured to be given within 3 working days (in UK time) where possible (if not more promptly!). Please ensure you read any existing questions first as your own question may have already been asked and answered. Q&As are very helpful to the course as they can inform others but also will, over time, help to make tweaks and improvements that will benefit others. Remember there is no such thing as a silly question if you would like any of the course content clarified/explained so you can gain a better understanding of what has been presented.

• Please do leave feedback where prompted. Feedback will lead to future improvements to this course and will lead to any issues you have experienced being resolved for yourself and others. Feedback is very much appreciated and of course positive feedback with 5 star reviews will be celebrated- and will lead to more people joining our mission!

• Udemy will provide you with a personal certificate of completion at the end of the course. The certificate will not be accessible until 100% of the lectures have been complete. If you get to the end and it is not displaying 100% then please look back to check all the lectures have a tick against them to show they are complete. Any issues please contact Udemy.

• You can also apply for the 'Manifesting art in schools' certificate for display in your school along with a badge to use on school materials to demonstrate you are a school who values art. This certificate and badge will be provided at no additional charge. All you need to do is make the request after you have completed the course completion along with the name of your school as you would like it written on the certificate. The certificate and badge will be provided usually within 1-2 weeks of request.

• If you experience any technical issues during this course please contact Udemy direct who will be best placed to support you. Note that some phones/tablets may need a PDF reader installed before you are able to access the resources attached to the lectures.