At Nursery Road Elementary School-Arts Magnet, we have adopted the philosophy of The Kennedy Center that “arts integration is an approach to teaching in which students construct and demonstrate understanding through an art form. Students engage in a creative process which connects an art form and another subject area and meets evolving objectives in both.” As such, the vision of NRES-AM is to increase student engagement and achievement by integrating Media, Visual, and Performing Arts into the curriculum in order to prepare students to become creative, self-motivated, and productive citizens. Specifically, our vision is:

• All students and teachers have access to a quality, comprehensive, sequential arts program based on the 2017 South Carolina College- and Career-Ready Standards for Visual and Performing Arts Proficiency that expands opportunities for students through innovative curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

• All students and faculty have access to quality facilities throughout the school to support an arts integrated curriculum.

• Staff participates in professional learning opportunities to support the delivery of a quality, comprehensive, sequential visual and performing arts program.

• Stakeholders advocate for the continuation/expansion/sustainability of Nursery Road’s visual and performing arts program.

The arts theme is woven into the daily fabric of our school and is seen in our expanded Academic Arts programming and how arts integration is infused into the general education curriculum and co-taught with classroom and arts teachers. Our vision and beliefs set the strong foundation for our goals and objectives; as such our educational activities are titled and experienced through that lens. Some examples are as follows: our monthly character trait assemblies are called “Hall of Fame Awards;” our 9-week academic celebrations are called “Red Carpet Awards,” where students actually walk the red carpet; and the back to school event is called “Opening Act.”