Creative Care Package for families and schools (No. 9 - August 19th 2020)

Creative Care Package for families and schools (No. 9 - August 19th 2020)

This week‘s Creative Care Package highlights the plethora of incredible arts and cultural activities still happening despite Covid-19. It pays tribute to the depths of care, connection and community that the arts can reach beyond our limitations, and it celebrates 18 years of the Earlyarts network before, sadly, its final closure. Dive in and enjoy!

Creative Care Package for families and schools (No. 8 - June 17th 2020)

Creative Care Package for families and schools (No. 8 - June 17th 2020)

This week‘s Creative Care Package brings a wealth of inter-cultural arts and creative opportunities as well as some more challenging pieces to help us stop, listen, think and act towards antiracism. Please do share and enjoy trying them out for yourselves at home or at school.

Creative Care Package for families and schools (No. 7 - May 28th 2020)

Creative Care Package for families and schools (No. 7 - May 28th 2020)

This week‘s Creative Care Package explores another incredible range of arts, cultural and creative activities that many organisations are offering for free. Which is pretty amazing considering many of them know now that they will not survive this pandemic. Please do share with families, friends and colleagues. One day soon we will miss all these amazing offers, just like, right now, we miss our friends and family.

Creative Care Package for families and schools (No. 6 - May 13th 2020)

Creative Care Package for families and schools (No. 6 - May 13th 2020)

This week ‘s Creative Care Package has some gorgeous activities to try out. I reveal the impact the word ‘vulnerable’ is having on, well, people who are vulnerable, and ask if we can call them valuable instead. Please feel free to share so that we can reach as many families and teachers as possible!

Creative Care Package for families and schools (No. 5 - April 28th 2020)

Creative Care Package for families and schools (No. 5 - April 28th 2020)

This week ‘s Creative Care Package brings a new selection of arts, cultural and creative activities to try out at home. I reflect on how we can use creativity to cope with big emotions and invite you to try them out with me. Please feel free to share so that we can reach as many families as possible!

Creative Care Package for families and schools (No. 4 - April 15th 2020)

Creative Care Package for families and schools (No. 4 - April 15th 2020)

This week ‘s Creative Care Package includes a bumper crop of carefully chosen arts, dance, museums, story and music activities. I offer a personal story about why this all matters to me, and hope that we can find new ways of supporting each other’s creativity in our post-covid world, whatever that might look like. Please feel free to share so that these creative hugs can reach as many families as possible!

Creative Care Package for families and schools (No. 3 - April 6th 2020)

Creative Care Package for families and schools (No. 3 - April 6th 2020)

This week we bring you a super Easter package bursting full of creative activities, hopefully enough to last till bedtime every evening! Grown-ups beware - these activities may become rather addictive as you roll your sleeves up and get stuck in! We hope you enjoy them.

Creative Care Package for families and schools (No. 2 - March 30th 2020)

Creative Care Package for families and schools (No. 2 - March 30th 2020)

In this strange old time, I am gathering some strange old resources - ones that are a) lovingly made by artists and cultural organisations, b) for early years and c) encourage creative processes. These will hopefully add a little spice, ingenuity and curiosity to yours and your children’s lives in the coming weeks.

Creative Care Package for families and schools (No. 1 - March 23rd 2020)

Creative Care Package for families and schools (No. 1 - March 23rd 2020)

In this strange old time, I am gathering some strange old resources - ones that are a) lovingly made by artists and cultural organisations, b) for early years and c) encourage creative processes. These will hopefully add a little spice, ingenuity and curiosity to yours and your children’s lives in the coming weeks.

Attuning through immersive dance with children who don't speak

Attuning through immersive dance with children who don't speak

Those of you who have been following my PhD journey have asked to see the research proposal. So here it is. Bear in mind it is written in a particular language to reflect the philosophical frame I will be engaging with (posthumanism and new materialism) and yes, it does stretch the mind somewhat! But it is also the closest and most authentic framework I have ever come across for researching how children are.

Consultation on EYFS Reforms and the implications for arts and culture

Consultation on EYFS Reforms and the implications for arts and culture

The proposed reforms to the EYFS seem to be more prescriptive than before and, in Expressive Arts and Design, limited to developing arts skills as opposed to children’s broader cultural and creative development. Ruth Churchill Dower discusses how the EYFS has been designed and how the reforms could go further to help promote creative, emotional and social attunement, celebrate multiple cultural identities, and better reflect the contemporary and diverse home learning contexts children are growing up in.