We scrunched, we stretched, we draped materials and as we did we noticed, we thought, we talked, we reflected, we laughed and giggled…..and together we remembered how to play, how to share, how to communicate and how to work together……….and that was the adults!
Professional Development Training is all about encouraging play in a safe space where the theory can still be explored and connections to developmental goals can be understood. Grown-up life doesn’t always enable us be playful and even when working with children, the curriculum goals and planning processes mean that freedom to play is limited even more. Sometimes staff need the chance to try out new ideas, explore new topics and enjoy the creative process for themselves and creative professional development enables this through permission and space to play and reflect.
When artists work in early years settings, then a strong partnership with shared responsibility between the Artist and the Educator leads to a much more focused and enriching experience for all. Artists and Early Years Educators have many co-creative skills based on a mixture of intuitive, theoretical and practical skills. Arts partnership training is also about creating a relationship based on a shared vision and shared vocabulary between the two parties which enables the children to play and learn in the flexible way that works best for them.
Creative Early Years Training (previous projects)
Cape UK (Early Arts Pathfinders NW)
Creative Collaboration (Sure Start Centre Team Building and Creative Training)
Early Arts Unconference (Sculpting Small Worlds, discovering new ways of working with clay)
City of York Council, (Mentoring Programme, Professional Development for Artists)
Artforms Leeds (Active Learning Programme)
http://www.artformsleeds.co.uk/shared/cms/interface/view.aspx?id=392
Essential Arts 