Pupil Referral Unit pioneers North West Specialist Arts Network

Manchester Secondary Pupil Referral Unit (MSPRU) is a multi-site Alternative Provision school located over five sites across all parts of the city of Manchester. They have approximately 250 students on placement who have been permanently excluded from mainstream high schools in the city.

Artsmark Lead Teacher, Russell Bennett writes about how their crucial partnership work has empowered MSPRU to lead the newly-formed North West Specialist Arts Network.

“We have always believed in the centrality of arts and culture as a primary means of reaching and teaching disadvantaged and disenfranchised students with complex backgrounds and learning needs. As such we have been a proud Artsmark school for over 15 years, being a key player in city-wide cultural events such as Manchester Day Parade, and arts networks such as MADE (Manchester’s LCEP), the Manchester Art Teachers’ Collective, and Manchester High Schools’ Music Hub. We are thrilled to have recently been awarded Artsmark Gold.

Below are images from our flagship arts projects from our recent Artsmark journey:

The World Reimagined Globe entitled ‘‘Making Waves’ – Black Britons Leading the Global Sea Change’. This was displayed during summer 2022 at the Royal Northern College of Music

Two globe art sculptures with images of Black Britons on them.

The Art Assembly piece entitled ‘An Unconventional Legend’ which our produced in collaboration with commissioned artists David McFarlane & Raheel Khan. This was displayed at Manchester Art Gallery and has since been nominated for the Manchester Culture Awards 2023 under the category ‘Made In Manchester’

A series of images portraying an art project including the image of two men and a piece of artwork displayed in a gallery

At the time of writing we are about to host BBC Radio 5 Live presenter Nihal Arthanayake to run DJ workshops for all Key Stages at one of our Learning Centres.

The North West Specialist Arts Settings Network was born

In June 2023, I was invited by Curious Minds to join an online meeting to share good practice among specialist settings in the North West. At the end of the meeting, they invited our school to take the North West Specialist Arts Settings Network (NSAS) forward, to provide local support and sharing of expertise. We were delighted to pioneer the network going forward into 2023-24 and beyond.

To date we have had one meeting, in September 2023, with another scheduled for November 2023. We have had a positive response from those invited and had five colleagues join the first meeting, ranging from a Hospital School and a Primary PRU in Manchester, and an Autism Spectrum Disorder setting in the Wirral. We have since added a colleague from a North Manchester High School inclusion unit. Colleagues from Salford and Cumbria are planning to attend the next meeting.

The aim of the network is to ‘Connect, Support & Resource’ colleagues leading or delivering the arts in their setting, across the North West region.

The objectives of the network are to provide:

developments, resources and opportunities in the arts for specialist settings
networking opportunities created for like-minded professionals
promotion and sharing of best practice - both established and emerging - for effective delivery of the arts in specialist settings
ideas for how cultural opportunities can be made available more equally to all localities across the region including outlying areas
a forum to explore the opportunities for ‘cultural exchange’ visits between arts lead colleagues in a different setting

Despite the obligatory ICT gremlins threatening to derail the first Zoom meeting, we are off to a good start as all colleagues shared examples of their own good practice with the group.

We look forward to seeing the network develop and expand during this academic year. If you would like to get in touch, please email me.”