Pupils play with clay, helped by an artist educator.

Artist educators

Bow Arts serves a wide range of schools and colleges by providing high-quality arts experiences for children, young people, and teachers. We work with artist educators to provide bespoke projects that are designed around the needs of individual schools.

Work with us

Bow Arts works with creative, hands-on individuals, who bring their experience and expertise as artists to their roles as professional artist educators. 

Bow Arts are not currently accepting new artists to join our talented pool of Artist Educators. Be the first to hear about updates and opportunities by following us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Being an artist educator

Being an artist educator is about working collaboratively with schools to deliver innovative, creative learning experiences that challenge and inspire young people and teachers, supporting them to produce high-quality work.

Take a look at some of our innovative school projects

Spotlight on artist educators

FAQs

How much will I get paid

Our current artist fees are:

Planning meeting: £53.30
Half Day Workshop – £ 95.95
Full Day Workshop – £191.90 a day

Projects can vary from one-off sessions to weekly workshops across a whole term or academic year. 

We pay artists a fee for their attendance at a planning meeting. An artist day is the equivalent of 9am to 5pm, although we recognise that only a proportion of this is likely to be contact time delivering the project. The remaining hours contribute towards planning, preparation and evaluation. We pay half day rates for any workshop under 3.5 hours. We do not pay artist travel expenses. 

Do I need a DBS Certificate?

Yes, you will need an enhanced DBS certificate for working with children. You can apply for a new DBS check through Bow Arts, but we ask that artists pay for this. 

We are able to accept a DBS check completed through another organisation, provided that it was issued within the last three years. We will need to see a hard copy for our records.

Do I need particular experience?

Yes, we want our artist educators to have experience working with, and leading projects for, young people in either formal or informal settings. 

However, we run an Artist Educator Trainee Programme for artists without the necessary experience looking to become lead artist educators with Bow Arts. We accept 4-6 artists each year to take part in this programme. 

The programme includes,

  • Supporting lead artists on Bow Arts projects in a range of school settings 
  • Gaining skills in planning and evaluating formal learning projects
  • Supported group meetings with Bow Arts staff and lead artists

By the end of the programme, trainees will have experience in planning projects, writing session plans, delivering a workshop activity, and understanding school settings and curriculum contexts.

We recruit for the Artist Educator Trainee Programme annually in the summer period. Please check our opportunities page for applications.

Do you provide any training?

Yes, we strongly encourage our artist educators to continue developing their artistic and educational practices. Bow Arts supports this by providing regular training opportunities for our artist educators, free of charge. 

These include external training on specific topics, Arts Award advisor training and Skills Exchanges among our artist educator pool.

If you would like to know more about becoming an artist educator with Bow Arts please email learning@bowarts.com.

Other opportunities