The Bronze Award will help you develop your arts skills, be the audience, research artists and share your skills. Take a look below to find out what you need to do and visit the Get Inspired section for ideas to get you started. 

You'll need to make an Arts Award portfolio to keep track of everything you do and show your Arts Award adviser. You can post work on Voice to build an online portfolio then keep your posts in your own portfolio collection.  Here's some examples of Bronze portfolio posts to give you ideas.

Ready to go? At the end of each section, you'll find useful prompt sheets you can download, or you can view them all on the Bronze Downloads page.

Take part

This part is all about developing your arts skills, interests and knowledge! You need to take part in one or more arts activities to develop your skills and collect evidence of what you did and what you learned for your portfolio. 

Get going and take part in one or more arts activities - it could be dance, music, poetry, fashion, or whatever you're into! This could be something completely new to you or something that you are ready familiar with. The key thing is to watch your skills develop and track your own progress. 

6adaa09924d4f26fd3fb997ffb1a3224934135d1.pngWant some ideas?

Check out this How to Use Voice for your Arts Award Portfolio or check out the Bronze Resources in the Get Inspired section for more hints and tips. 

9df5906cbb13e2f030188b9356dc78f9515afc51.pngThe portfolio bit

Keep track of everything you’re doing by taking pictures, making a video or audio recording, or writing a blog as you go! Include these in your Arts Award portfolio so your adviser can see everything you’ve been up to. Check out Bronze portfolios in the Get Inspired section for examples.

Mini Checklist for Part A

Make sure you include these in your portfolio: 

  • A description of the arts activity

  • Your evidence of the activity. It could be photos, a blog post, video, audio, etc. 

  • A record of what you enjoyed most, what you learned from participating and how your skills improved.

Download PROMPT SHEET (WORD)

Download PROMPT SHEET (GOOGLE DOC)

Download a prompt sheet to help you plan your Arts Award
You can also download the 'What To Do' pages and a Portfolio Checklist from the Downloads page


Be the audience

This is the bit where you get to enjoy something someone else has created. There are three things you need to do in this section: experience the arts as an audience member, review your experience and share your opinion with others.


6adaa09924d4f26fd3fb997ffb1a3224934135d1.pngChoose an arts experience

Find an arts event or experience that sounds fun and interesting. 
It could be any of the following and more:

Exhibitions - Public art - Plays - Gigs - Arts festivals

Comedy shows - Fashion shows - Films - Online events

Browse our Arts Award Supporters to see what events are happening in your area. 

6adaa09924d4f26fd3fb997ffb1a3224934135d1.pngWhat did you think?

What was it like? Which art form was involved? What did you like best and why? What didn’t you like and why? 

Discuss your views with your group or your adviser.

You might like to create a review of what you've seen. You can record yourself talking about the show on a podcast or make a video or a presentation.

Top tips for creating reviews:

  • Record your thoughts during or immediately after the event, whether you want to make bullet points, record a quick video, make an audio recording or Tweet about it. Make notes while it's still fresh in your head.  
  • Back up your opinion, if you can, with some research about the artistic content. Are they the first artist to have created this kind of work? If not, who or what might be their inspiration? How does it compare?
  • Think about the why. Okay, so you loved the music event, but what was good and why? It helps people to understand your review if you can explain your opinions.

Get some inspiration by checking out the reviews in Arts Inspiration in the Get Inspired section

6adaa09924d4f26fd3fb997ffb1a3224934135d1.pngShare your opinion

Make sure you share your opinions with others by discussing them or posting a review. Keep some evidence of doing that!

6adaa09924d4f26fd3fb997ffb1a3224934135d1.pngWant some ideas?

Here's a handy guide on How to Review a Music Event or How to Review an Exhibition, or head to our reviews page for some examples. 

9df5906cbb13e2f030188b9356dc78f9515afc51.pngThe portfolio bit

Keep track of everything you’re doing by taking pictures, making a video or audio recording, or writing a blog as you go! Include it in your Arts Award portfolio so your adviser can see everything you’ve been up to. Check out our portfolio hub for examples.

Mini Checklist for Part B

Make sure you include these in your portfolio: 

  • Evidence of the event, such as tickets, flyers, brochures or photos

  • Your review or reflection

  • Evidence of how you shared it, such as a link to your review on this website, a cutting from your school magazine, notes or photos of a discussion with your group

Download PROMPT SHEET (WORD)

Download PROMPT SHEET (GOOGLE DOC)

Download a prompt sheet to help you plan your Arts Award
You can also download the 'What To Do' pages and a Portfolio Checklist from the Downloads page


Arts inspiration

For this part, there are two things you need to do: research an artist, craftsperson or arts practitioner who inspires you, find out about their arts career, life, and work and then create a summary of what you have found out.  They can be a well-known artist - like an author, actor or musician - or someone as obscure and as unknown as your gran who knits her own designs like a machine or your neighbour who plays the sitar. They have to be a real person, though they don't have to be alive. And you don’t actually need to know their name if you happen to get inspired by tribal art made by an unknown craftsperson!

It’s exciting if you can meet your art inspiration and ask questions, or get to see their work live. However, if you can't meet in person, why not try to get in touch by email or ask for a video call. Remember to include this in your portfolio! 

Check out Voice's interviews with young artists on Instagram or watch our video interviews with established artists in the Arts Award Off the Shelf series, designed to help with your Bronze Award. Below are two artist interviews by Arts Award achievers to give you ideas, or take a look through the Arts Inspiration area of the Get Inspired section.

Portfolio Examples

Check out our portfolio examples hub for inspiration on how to present your research in to the arts sector.

6adaa09924d4f26fd3fb997ffb1a3224934135d1.pngWant some ideas?

Read Gold achiever Victoria's tips on How to interview an artist or Luke's How to write an arts interview or browse the Get Inspired section for more hints and tips. 

9df5906cbb13e2f030188b9356dc78f9515afc51.pngThe portfolio bit

Keep track of everything you’re doing by taking pictures, making a video or audio recording, or writing a blog as you go! Include it in your Arts Award portfolio so your adviser can see everything you’ve been up to. Check out our portfolio hub for examples.

Mini Checklist for Part C

Make sure you include these in your portfolio: 

  • Your research into the arts career, work and life of your chosen arts inspiration
  • A summary of why you chose this person and the main things you found out about their artistic career, work, and life

Download PROMPT SHEET (WORD)

Download PROMPT SHEET (GOOGLE DOC)

Download a prompt sheet to help you plan your Arts Award
You can also download the 'What To Do' pages and a Portfolio Checklist from the Downloads page


Arts skills share

Part D is about passing on one of your (many) creative skills to someone else. Your job is to just teach them something! There are three things you need to do in this section: plan how to share your arts skill, share it, making sure you have evidence of the sharing, and reflect on how well you passed on your skills. 

Sharing your arts skills is all about telling people ‘how-to’ - how to make, create or do the things that you know how to do. Make sure to plan who will participate and how to make it fun and interesting. Think about what materials you might need, whether you need any help from others and remember to practice and prepare!

6adaa09924d4f26fd3fb997ffb1a3224934135d1.pngHow to share your arts skills

  • Run a workshop with your group to teach them a new dance routine
  • Teach a friend how to rig a theatre light up
  • Create a tutorial video about how to draw
  • Run a warm-up session to support artists in their workshop
  • Run a Facebook or Instagram live session 
  • Write and upload a how-to guide for artsawardvoice.com

6adaa09924d4f26fd3fb997ffb1a3224934135d1.pngWant some ideas?

Read this guide on How to Share your Arts Skills, or head to the Bronze Resources in the Get Inspired section for more hints and tips. 

9df5906cbb13e2f030188b9356dc78f9515afc51.pngThe portfolio bit

Keep track of everything you’re doing by taking pictures, making a video or audio recording, or writing a blog as you go! Include it in your Arts Award portfolio so your adviser can see everything you’ve been up to. Check out our portfolio hub for examples.

Mini Checklist for Part D

Make sure you include these in your portfolio: 

  • Your plans to share your arts skills, including an explanation of your activity and why you chose to share that skill

  • You sharing your arts skill e.g. photos or film/sound recording

  • Your thoughts about how it went and how well you passed on your arts skills

Download PROMPT SHEET (WORD)

Download PROMPT SHEET (GOOGLE DOC)

Download a prompt sheet to help you plan your Arts Award
You can also download the 'What To Do' pages and a Portfolio Checklist from the Downloads page