Silver Hub

Silver Unit 1 is all about your extending your personal arts practice and your knowledge of pathways into the arts. In Parts A and B, you plan and achieve an arts challenge. Here's what you need to do...

Part A is all about figuring out and developing your own arts skills. You could explore a skill you already have or learn something completely new.  A good starting point is to note down the skills you already have, what you might want to develop and why you’ve chosen your challenge. You could write this down, create a diagram or poster or draw a picture to help you plan. 

There are two things to do for Part B: 

• Get going to achieve your challenge - make sure to use your plan from Part A

• Review how well it went and what you learned. You’ll need feedback from other people to use in your review. 

Check out this video from Erica for an example of what she did for her Silver Arts Award, Unit 1: Part B. 

This part is all about reviewing the arts as an audience member. You could review a live event such as a performance, backstage tour, exhibition, fashion show or an online art gallery or film.

You need to: 

• Experience an arts event as an audience member

• Review it and share your review. 

This is your chance to find out how artists or arts organisations work - you can do this through meeting arts practitioners and through researching arts organisations.

Find out how they developed their career and what their working life is like.

Once you’ve done your research, have a think about the opportunities, careers or training you could take in your chosen art form to help build careers which interest you.

Take a look through the Want My Job and What Goes On At?  series on Voice and read Luke's How to Write an Arts Interview. You'll soon get some ideas for the questions to ask when talking to a professional. Joanna Bailey's feature on How to Research an Artist is also really useful! 

Check out Voice's interviews with young artists on Instagram or take a look through our video interviews with established creatives in Arts Award Off the Shelf  Perhaps you could video your interview?

Then look through Voice's Careers section to find out more about how to get into the arts - or head over to the creative careers website Discover Creative Careers

Your Silver Arts Award Unit 2 is all about developing your arts leadership skills. You get to plan and deliver an arts project, supported by your adviser. You can work on your own or as a member of a leadership team.

Top tips for being a successful arts leader for Silver Arts Award: 

• Identify the leadership skills you want to develop

• Develop your project creatively 

• Consider the interests and abilities of your participants or audience 

• Define your own leadership role and other responsibilities within the project

• Organise resources and/or people 

• Communicate effectively

• Plan how you're going to get feedback

Here's what you need to do to achieve your Unit 2 Silver Arts Award.

Create a project plan in a format that suits you. Your plan should include: 

• A description of the project 
• Your role in the project, including the leadership skills you want to develop 
• The aims of the project 
• Who the project will benefit and why
• Who you will work with and their roles
• The resources needed
• Information about any health and safety issues
• How the project will be promoted 

Take a look at this video from The Green Room school on their Silver leadership project: 

• Gather evidence of what you do to make your leadership project happen (eg photos, video, audio) 
• Do you have to change your plans?  If so, explain why
• Make notes about how you communicate and co-operate with others and how you deal with any problems in your team
• Make notes about how you're developing your leadership skills 

• You need to write a report on how the project went and how successful you were as a leader. Did you achieve your aims?  What would you do differently next time?
• Include your own views, feedback from others and what you learned