
Imagination for life and learning
An early years and creativity development plan for Yorkshire
Contributions by the many partners involved in arts and early years
throughout Yorkshire
Facilitated and written by Ruth Churchill Dower, Isaacs UK
Contents
1
2
Imagination for life and learning – an introduction .............. 3
Framework for the development plan .................................. 5
Brief from Arts Council England, Yorkshire .............................................5
3 National and regional context .............................................. 7
Regional strengths ....................................................................................10
Regional weaknesses ...............................................................................10
4 Visions and guiding principles ............................................ 12
5
Identified issues for the region and recommendations for
action ......................................................................................... 13
5.1 Professional development ...............................................................13
5.2 Capacity and resources ...................................................................14
5.3 Mainstreaming and sustainability ...................................................16
5.4 Advocacy ...........................................................................................18
5.5 Putting the plan into action ..............................................................19
6 Appendices .............................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
6.1 Bibliography ............................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
6.2 Methodology ........................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
6.3 Acknowledgements ................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
6.4 Map of current provision ........................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
6.5 National policy flowchart for arts and early yearsError! Bookmark not
defined.
6.6 The value of arts and creative practice in early years: signposts to
further reading................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
Imagination for life and learning
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1
Imagination for life and learning – an introduction
This is a brave and timely document. Brave in that its pages are studded with
terms from a lexicon long unfamiliar to early years practitioners, too long
bombarded with the language of public accountability: goals, targets, standards
and competences. Here the key words on every page are signposts to a different
territory: a place of vision and growth, of knowledge sharing and advocacy, an
environment of security, respect and belonging.
It is timely in two ways. First in its scrupulous, detailed attention to the current
regional and national scenes, and the bewildering variety of initiatives and
organisations with links to services to children, the creative arts, and early years
provisions of every kind, here masterfully mapped and referenced. And secondly,
in its uncompromising orientation towards the future: the plan is, simply, to build a
better place for children to live their childhoods in.
And yet, as I read, while recognising the importance of the politics of the present
moment, and convinced by the argument that at this same moment the early years
community, in its widest sense, is facing a ‘crucial opportunity’, I was reminded
more than once of voices from the past that we would do well to remember. I
thought of the words of other writers and thinkers who long ago expressed some
of the profound ideas that underpin this development plan: the relation between
creativity and freedom, the deep emotional engagement that drives serious
learning, the centrality of the imagination in children’s lives.
Simone Weil, for example, the great French philosopher and mystic, wrote (in a
beautiful essay on the dignity of human labour) that ‘in human effort the only
source of energy is desire’1. What an inspiring expression of the necessity to
shape our early learning environments so as to make room for children’s desires.
For their irrepressible and inventive energies, for what this document calls their
‘natural languages of creativity’.
And an earlier writer still, George MacDonald, author of the classic children’s
stories The Princess and Curdie and At the Back of the North Wind, writing of ‘the
necessity we are under to imagine’, describes the work of the imagination in these
amazing words:
1
Weil, S. (1941) Pre-requisite to dignity of labour, in Miles, S. (ed) Simone Weil: An Anthology London: Virago
Imagination for life and learning
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The region belonging to the pure intellect is straitened: the imagination labours to
extend its territories, to give it room. She sweeps across the borders, searching
out new lands into which she may guide her plodding brother. The imagination is
the light which redeems from the darkness for the eyes of the understanding2.
As the title of this document so strongly asserts, imagination must be the stuff of
‘Life and Learning’ if we are to do well by children. The development plan goes on
to show that we can, and we will.
Mary Jane Drummond
Writer and researcher
Langthwaite, North Yorkshire, January 2006
2
MacDonald, G. (1983) The Imagination: Its functions and its Culture, in A Dish of Orts London: Sampson Low, Marston &
Co.
Imagination for life and learning
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2 Framework for the development plan
‘There are two values which you can give a child as a present for life. First of all
roots, and then wings.’ (Native American proverb)
There is much research and evidence as to the positive impact on children’s
development (social, physical, health and well-being, educational, skills, civic and
so on) through engagement with arts from an early age, and within an environment
committed to developing creative approaches to teaching and learning, whether
the focus is arts related or not.
This development plan is about finding ways of increasing this impact and, in
some cases, simply helping arts and early years practitioners to engage with
quality creative practices in the first place.
The plan offers a unique opportunity to develop a regional vision for the growth of
the arts and early years sectors to which all practitioners and policy makers can
contribute and share. It provides a framework for all partners to map, place and
value their current activity within a broader context. It gives us an opportunity to
better understand and navigate government agendas, and gives localised work a
much greater sense of place and strength within the region.
Through a comprehensive consultation process, the key visions, challenges and
opportunities being experienced by the region’s practitioners were identified and
acknowledged. This in turn helped us to identify the resources and infrastructure
needed to map out our journeys and, more importantly, how we could better
support each other in doing so. The development plan will help Arts Council
England, Yorkshire to deliver the national Children, young people and the arts
strategy in a more coherent and meaningful way for the region. The knowledge
sharing and advocacy that can be achieved more powerfully together than
individually, will give the region long deserved recognition for its arts and early
years achievements, and help to raise the profile of the excellent work of our
practitioners at national and international levels.
Brief from Arts Council England, Yorkshire
To design a regional development plan for the arts and early years sectors in
synergy with the national Arts Council England strategy for children, young people
and the arts.
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Objectives
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stimulate early years arts and creative activity
enhance opportunities to share good practice
increase practitioners’ and organisations’ capacity through training and
professional development
build international links, leading on from the International creative practice
in early years settings research to broaden our horizons and learn about
other practice
strengthen local connections, the programme and resource base of the
early years and creativity Hub
build sustainability and longevity
develop advocacy and profile raising through strategic partnerships
‘grow’ the infrastructure
Imagination for life and learning
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3 National and regional context
We are living and working in times of great change, particularly around the
immense growth and investment by the Government in a visionary early years
infrastructure. The exciting thing about this sector is that policy and practice have
a dynamic and evolving influence on each other. At the same time, our arts and
cultural policies are being repositioned to actively engage, and be influenced by,
children and young people from all cultures and societies.
In England and other European countries, Ministries of Education, Culture and
Health have begun to recognise the fundamental importance of the work of
creative practitioners to the healthy and balanced development of a child from the
earliest stages, and have started to support this with wide ranging policies and
dedicated budgets.
It is a crucial opportunity for practitioners and policy-makers alike to come together
in planning, implementing, learning from, and changing practice on a large and
meaningful scale. Creative approaches to teaching, learning, thinking and doing
have been widely recognised as suitable and valuable mechanisms – firstly for
achieving the tremendous quality of life all children and their families should have
access to, and secondly, for building a set of attributes and skills to prepare them
for the best possible start in life.
In the last five years in particular, we have witnessed important moves in both
policy and practice. The National Childcare Strategy (1998) set out the basic
framework for development of childcare services and education. This was
progressed by the green paper, Every Child Matters: Change for Children (2003)
and housed within a groundbreaking legislative framework, The Children Act
(2004). The Act sets out the requirement for all children’s services to be
integrated, and aspires to place the wishes and needs of children’s services,
parents and learners centre-stage.
At a local level, these changes are being led by the new directors of Children's
Services in local authorities, bringing together education and children's social
services. Local authorities, Primary Care Trusts, and others are beginning to pool
budgets into a Children's Trust to support more joined up services on the ground.
The Government has also appointed a new Children's Commissioner in England,
to advise Government as to the effectiveness of these services.
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In view of the new duties to work in cooperation, providers of childcare, education,
health, employment and parenting support are joining forces with each other to
become one-stop-shop Children’s Centres. These centre-based integrated multiagency services aim to better meet the needs of families in the 20% most
disadvantaged wards in England and improve both children's life chances and
their parents' access to work and training. At the same time, schools are
expanding their remit to provide a more community orientated base, and dawn-todusk ‘wrap-around’ care for children including early years, referred to as the
Extended Schools Agenda.
Integral to achieving these strategies is the new learning framework for nought to
five-year-olds called the Early Years Foundation Stage, combining aspects of Birth
to Three Matters (Sure Start, 2003) and the Curriculum Guidance for the
Foundation Stage (Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, 2000), which was part
of the National Primary Strategy. The new framework will focus on meeting the
individual needs of children and highlight the importance of learning through play.
It recognises the importance of nurturing creativity in the care and education of
children, and has already opened up huge opportunities for the arts sector to
interact with early years.
The move to integrate services through Children’s Centres, Children’s Trusts and
Children’s Services, will hopefully see a much more coherent and strategic
development of what has become a segmented and over-burdened sector.
However, some people fear that the danger of over-simplification of services
through their centralisation will eradicate the possibility of meeting individual
needs. The arts and creative sectors have much to offer in ensuring this does not
happen. One of the most important roles they can play is in supporting a child’s
entitlement to celebrate their own, and others’, cultural identities, encourage their
individual expression, and to do so within an environment of security, respect and
belonging.
The Arts Council’s national publication of the Children, Young People and the arts
strategy states that:
‘The arts can contribute to achieving all five outcomes outlined in Every Child
Matters: being healthy, staying safe, making a positive contribution, achieving
economic well-being, and enjoying and achieving. We have seen a steady stream
of evidence which demonstrates the impact of the arts in achieving these
outcomes – particularly when we work in partnership with other sectors such as
health, education and youth justice…. We believe that everyone in England,
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through early childhood to young adulthood and beyond, should engage with the
highest quality of arts and creative experiences.’
This strategy is underpinned with strong campaign messages about the value and
transformational power of the arts, namely that:
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every child has the right to experience the arts and creativity
children's creative experiences today benefit tomorrow's community and
economy
an amazing artistic experience as a child can provide an inspiration for life
arts and creativity enhance teaching and learning
In the arts sector at a national level, there have been several initiatives 1 to raise
the profile of the arts within education, including The Arts Education Interface,
Spaces for Sport and Arts, Creative Partnerships, Artsmark, young people’s Arts
Awards, Building Schools for the Future, and specialist Arts Colleges which are
now focussing their energies on transition strategies, continuing the work started
by creative practitioners at Primary level. Other initiatives have produced guidance
specifically for arts and early years work including Reflect and review (2005) (see
footnote five), and ‘Things that artists should know about working with the early
years sector’.
It is within this context that Arts Council England, Yorkshire has developed its own
regional plan outlining the delivery of the national priorities, in collaboration with
the diverse network of partners who are essential to the success of this work for
children. For the last few years, Arts Council England, Yorkshire has laid the
foundations for an excellent base of creative practice across the region.
The Education and Learning Team has: fostered the sharing of skills and
knowledge through the early years and creativity Hub, open to all involved in arts
and early years practice; hosted a national conference exploring different
approaches to creativity in early years; commissioned and published research into
international models of creative practice in early years settings; and offer tailored
guidance and support to funded organisations and individuals working in this field.
The time is right to crystallize the many and varied opportunities for developing
this work and foster the growth of these sectors in a coherent and sustainable
way.
1
Details of all Arts Council England initiatives and publications here: www.artscouncil.org.uk
Imagination for life and learning
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However, Yorkshire is not without its own regional challenges experienced by arts
and early years practitioners trying to work together. Some of these are outlined
below and form the basis for the visioning work that regional partners have carried
out in designing this development plan.
Regional strengths
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high levels of creative activity in early years settings
Arts Council England support for innovative work across the sectors,
particularly through Creative Partnerships and Local Authority partnerships
the Early Years and Creativity Hub is growing and has good strategic links
across the arts and education sectors
Arts Council England’s recent Children, young people and the arts strategy
provides a strong strategic framework to support early years work
Yorkshire is well positioned to take advantage of national strategic
opportunities such as supporting and enhancing the delivery of the
emerging Children’s Services
strong commitment to link in to these agendas from all partners involved
several artists and companies are already working across the early years
sector, some of which are Arts Council England funded, and an established
culture of residencies exists
emerging recognition of quality work in the region at international levels
several practitioners have already participated in training and professional
development in creative approaches to early years work, and are aware of
its benefits
Regional weaknesses
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lack of a networking infrastructure at sub-regional levels (particularly rural
areas)
disparate opportunities for the longer-term development of creative practice
and little strategic connection or relevance to the wider policy contexts,
leading to short-term funding initiatives rather than sustainable partnerships
need for higher status for early years in the arts and education sectors
lack of quality assurance framework for cross-agency work with
stakeholders such as parents, carers, practitioners, and artists
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2
need for joint thinking and planning between Arts Council England, other
NDPBs2, and LEAs3 on supporting strategies to ease the transition periods
between Foundation Stage (early years), Key Stage 1 (primary) and Key
Stage 3 (secondary) so that essential skills and attributes built up through
creative practice and imaginative play are not lost within a more regimented
curriculum
complexities of LEA policies can make funders inflexible and
unapproachable towards partnership opportunities
fear of further division between arts and early years provision within the
new Children’s Services
fear of the centralisation of Children’s Services promoting the delivery of
creativity as a ‘package’ where one size is intended to fit all, to solve all
problems, and with little space to explore individual needs and cultural
contexts
few strategic connections for profiling the region at national levels within
DfES, QCA and DCMS
Non Departmental Public Bodies, agencies with a national and regional remit to advise on and deliver central government
policies at arms length such as Sport England, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, and English Heritage as well
as Arts Council England
3
Local Education Authorities who now have the remit to provide the infrastructure for delivery of all Children’s Services, in
partnership with several stakeholders such as Sure Start, Children’s Centres, and schools.
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4 Visions and guiding principles
Children have the right to participate in cultural and creative experiences in order
to help develop their natural languages of creativity and understand and
appreciate their own, and other people’s, diverse cultural environments. Access to
life-changing arts experiences should not be dependent on a child’s
circumstances.
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Children’s entitlement to arts and culture should be based on a cluster of
values such as enjoyment, freedom, democracy, justice, peace, equal
respect for the individual and for the community – not on inflexible
educational or social systems. Everybody should take responsibility for
enabling children’s entitlement to culture and to learning. This should be
driven both by national policy and grass-roots action to ensure that all policy
development is directly and continually informed by practice.
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Providers and supporters of such opportunities should base their work on
the principles of: inclusivity; mutual respect; excellent quality; listening to
children; active engagement, interaction and participation; holistic learning
through play and fostering the imagination; access to the environment; and
engaging the support system of the child/family.
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Creative practice, be it for artistic, cultural, social, educational, economic,
environmental or other means, should be embedded into everyday practice.
It should be recognised for the important contribution it can make to a
child’s life either as a creative means in its own right or as a tool for
development. Everyone can be creative if they feel inspired, safe, and
confident enough. Having arts skills, although useful, is not a pre-requisite
to creative teaching, learning, thinking or doing.
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The early learning environment should be a safe space to explore and learn
with enough time to facilitate creativity, the right people to support the
process who can think laterally, and resources which are fit for the purpose.
The ethos of such space should be process-orientated rather than productdriven, and be flexible enough to encourage risk-taking (both adults and
children). Time to plan, to do, to observe, to listen and to reflect should be
embedded into the environment. All learning should be expressed and
captured as much as possible and continually fed in to the practice and
organisational change. The ultimate aim should be to harness a natural
learning ‘space’ which can happen anywhere at any time.
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5
Identified issues for the region and recommendations for
action
5.1
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4
Professional development
Seek opportunities for professional early years artists and teachers to work
with each other through mentoring, leadership, exchange programmes
(including our international partners’ programmes – see footnote 13) or
apprenticeship schemes between beacon settings, arts organisations or
artists and those beginning the journey.
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Such exchanges would allow the sharing of new knowledge and skills, and
challenge institutionalised thinking within established practices. They would
also provide an open door through which new recruits to arts and early
years work can walk in with good quality guidance and support for their own
career development.
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Investigate good practice frameworks such as Investors in People4 which
promote healthy people, leadership and change management, to
complement guidance that concentrates primarily on organisational,
process and practice change, such as Reflect and review5 and Keeping arts
safe6.
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Provide opportunities for Hub partners to develop shared visions and
learning from each other through Cluster Groups specifically for peers from
each sector. Cluster Groups would aim to model good practice by
investigating what constitutes good quality work, forthcoming opportunities
for creative partnerships, what hasn’t worked, challenging boundaries,
sharing policy and practice development, and processes for planning,
ideas, reflection, evaluation, and so on.
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The importance of sector-based groups reflects the need expressed by
artists, early years advisers, and educationalists, for forums where issues
affecting each other’s practice can be discussed at a deeper level due to
Investors in People is a framework to increase standards in an organisation and covers staff, organisation, leadership,
learning and business management. Details here: www.investorsinpeople.co.uk
5
Reflect and Review: the arts and creativity in early years by Jo Belloli and Felicity Woolf, published by Arts Council
England, August 2005. Available here: www.artscouncil.org.uk/publications
6
Keeping Arts Safe provides guidance for artists and arts organisations on safeguarding children, young people and
vulnerable adults. Available here: www.artscouncil.org.uk/publications
Imagination for life and learning
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the shared knowledge of each other’s work contexts. It also reflects the lack
of suitable training and professional development opportunities within peer
groups for tackling these issues in ways that can change practice.
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Establish a sustainable training programme for cascading learning and
skills development between practitioners, teachers, parents, children, and
artists. This could be designed to integrate with, or complement, the LEAs
current early years training and should also provide opportunities to focus
on less ‘common’ artforms such as architecture, textiles, multimedia,
photography and interactive performance.
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Opportunities should be explored for establishing a regional advisory
framework to support the delivery of children’s and cultural services,
consisting of a body of specialist advisors, such as Hub members, with
expertise in specific areas of creative practice in early years, and who are
able to advise on good practice for arts organisations, LEAs, schools,
settings, childminding networks, and so on.
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Increase access to quality information and knowledge on current creative
practice by supporting the development of the earlyarts7 web based
resource bank of current early years creativity projects and theory
being developed in the UK and abroad.
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Involve teacher training and higher education institutions such as arts,
dance, music and drama schools, colleges and universities in Hub meetings
in order to influence the design of arts or early years course materials,
encourage the use of early years artists to deliver content, and better link
supply to demand. Opportunities should be explored for arts and early
years placements schemes in the workplace aimed at building creative
awareness and skills for students at all levels.
5.2
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7
Capacity and resources
Identify sources of funds which could be concentrated on providing
access to basic creative practice opportunities such as: cover for staff
earlyarts is the arts and early years network for the north west, which has built and piloted a regional resource bank on
creative practice and theory in early years. The use of this resource has been so successful, the opportunity now exists for
the resource bank and artists database to become nationalised region by region, starting with the north of England. Its new
site and Resource Bank is to be launched in Spring 2006. Details here: www.earlyarts.co.uk
Imagination for life and learning
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attending training and networking; funding for trained creative practitioners
to work alongside parents, children, teachers, or artists; investment in
equipment for documentation as a valuable legacy for settings and an
alternative to formal assessment.
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Seed fund longer-term action research (perhaps in partnership with the
CARA8 Awards) to enable educators and artists to develop skills and
capacity which has a lasting legacy for both. This might explore barriers to,
and impacts of, creative practice upon children’s learning; and the most
conducive environments for creative thinking and learning to flourish.
The learning from such research would have a dual purpose. It would allow
the space for each individual setting, artist or arts organisation to build a
knowledge of what works best within their own contexts, firstly enabling
adaptations and cultural changes to become embedded over a longer
period, secondly to establish a series of fundamental benchmarks in good
practice for future work in other settings. These benchmarks might address
issues of building confidence, ambition, motivation, shared languages,
meeting individual learning needs, and so on.
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Secure commitments to longer-term investment in early years creative
programmes, in partnership with national frameworks such as Creative
Partnerships, Youth Music, Sure Start or local frameworks such as
Universities and LEAs. Such work would require a rethink of funding
categories to encompass ‘trials’ or ‘pilots’ as it is often difficult to show
sustainability at the outset of projects, but no less important to have the
space and resources to do this work.
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In tandem with the Resource Bank, partners should support the
development of a regional artists database containing information on
those available to work in early years areas, accessed through a brokerage
service (run by AXIS9) which questions why enquirers want to work with an
artist, and leads them through a diagnostic planning process to ensure
sustainability and fitness for purpose. In addition, a public database of
8
Creativity Action Research Awards (CARA) which are run nationally by CAPE UK. Details here: www.capeuk.org.
9
AXIS is a national arts and education agency which has been developing good practice frameworks and providing a
brokerage service for artists and schools, particularly where there are no Creative Partnerships or arts education agencies,
since 1991, including the earlyarts north west database. More details here: www.axisweb.org
Imagination for life and learning
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projects seeking partners can be developed and serviced through the Hub
or sub-regional network meetings.
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Quality assurance, evaluation, and reflective practice mechanisms
should be explored for wider use by the Hub or Cluster Groups such as
MLAC’s inspiring learning for all10, Reflect and review (see footnote five),
Investors in Children (IiC) kitemark (see footnote four), and KEEP11 the
SHEEP12 frameworks in order to raise standards and expectations,
particularly in the arts sector.
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There is a fine balance to be struck between taking the value out of creative
practice by over-regimenting its review processes, and not being able to
measure and value it at all, thereby losing important opportunities for
evidence-based advocacy at policy level.
5.3

Mainstreaming and sustainability
A more coherent positioning of arts and early years practice in relation
to priority agendas for Yorkshire is required. This will help to: clarify the ‘fit’
of such work and its outcomes within strategic contexts, enhance
stakeholder relationships, influence regional policy, merge strategic
initiatives where possible to reduce strategy overload, and build a critical
mass of demand for this work.
The arts sector in particular needs to come alongside LEAs to offer
partnerships both in policy and practice which seek to fulfil those agendas
centred in early developmental learning – perhaps entirely through creative
practice. However, where such offers are being made, it is important that a
well trained workforce, along with high quality creative products or services,
are already in place, some mechanisms for which are identified in the
section on professional development.
The timing for such strategic partnership development is particularly crucial
as the emerging children’s services identify the key players in delivering the
early years learning and healthcare agendas. Other key cultural
10
Museums, Libraries and Archives Council’s planning and evaluation toolkit: www.inspiringlearningforall.gov.uk
11
Key Elements of Effective Practice (KEEP) for early years practitioners. Details here: www.standards.dfes.gov.uk
12
The five outcomes for children and young people set out in Every Child Matters – keeping children Safe, Healthy,
Enjoying and achieving, Economically secure, and making a Productive contribution (SHEEP). Details here:
www.everychildmatters.gov.uk and www.surestart.gov.uk
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stakeholders who should be considered in delivering these strategies
include Yorkshire Museums, Libraries and Archives Services, Sport
England in Yorkshire, Yorkshire Culture, MusicLeader, Youth Music Action
Zones in Yorkshire, Yorkshire Forward, and Government Office Yorkshire
and Humber.
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Opportunities should be provided to raise the status for arts and early
years work by disseminating the region’s good practice and brokering
synergistic relationships with important national stakeholders including Sure
Start, QCA, OfSTED, Family Learning Organization, ContinYou, 4Children,
Ragdoll Foundation, Pre School Learning Alliance, SkillsActive, Sector
Skills Councils, Arts4Schools, Curiosity and Imagination, CABE, Creative
Partnerships, Youth Music, ENGAGE, National Children’s Bureau, Action
for Children’s Arts, Future Builders, National Association of Children’s
Information Services, and others who have an early years remit (see
national policy flowchart in Appendix 5.5 for details).
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Building on the Arts Council England research into International Creative
Practice in Early Years13, explore opportunities for researching and
piloting an arts-based education pedagogy, investigating how alternative
pedagogies (such as Reggio Emilia14 or Te Whariki15) can enhance the
early years curriculum to actively increase children’s engagement with
learning, reducing the loss of children’s creative capacity during the
transition period between early years and primary.
This could include areas such as: creative approaches to assessment,
evaluation and documentation aimed at making learning visible rather than
for accountability; different working relationships between artists and
teachers; focuses for staff development and cultural change through
creative practice; secondary teachers working alongside primary to
understand the roots of children’s learning and build creative transition
13
International Creative Practice in Early Years by Ruth Churchill Dower, published by Arts Council England, Yorkshire,
November 2004. Download a full copy or executive summary here: www.artscouncil.org.uk/publications
14
A town in Northern Italy with an international reputation for early childhood education, described as ‘the Reggio approach’.
Practice in these municipal infant-toddler centres is based on the idea that creativity is a central component of thinking and
of responding to the world. Details here: http://zerosei.comune.re.it/
15
Maori term for the Early Childhood curriculum taught in New Zealand: a holistic curriculum responding to children's
learning and development and the wider context of the child's world. It emphasises the learning partnership between staff,
children and family, and encourages a deep sense of belonging. Details here: www.minedu.govt.nz
Imagination for life and learning
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strategies. Several international partners have expressed the desire to be
involved in such research and piloting work, which would complement any
international exchange programmes designed under the section on
professional development.

Create safe environments for venue/festival programmers and early years
or arts educators to build confidence in selecting and booking quality artists
or companies to work with. Opportunities for artists to share practice
and explore potential partnerships might include open forums,
brokership programmes through the artists database, and regional
showcases.

Arts Council England should further support the promotion of early years
through each artform policy in line with the Children, young people and
the arts strategy. Opportunities for internal and external training to raise
awareness of the issues involved should be made available as well as joint
departmental planning across artforms to establish family friendly strategies
for implementation by regularly funded organisations and other agencies.

The early years and creativity Hub should engage external expertise to
help members prepare for future strategic priorities such as citizenship,
intergenerational work, family learning, and cultural entitlement. The remit
of the Hub should include a commitment to ‘rebranding’ and repositioning
arts and early years work by advocating it within the broader contexts that
can give it greater legitimacy and presence.
5.4

Advocacy
Identify Hub partners willing to be creativity champions using their
professional position and strengths to advocate and deliver the
development plan, develop and change their own internal strategies, and
influence regional or national policy development where possible.

The Hub should engage in a cultural and early years recruitment drive to
ensure all the relevant partners are invited to contribute and are aware of its
existence as a regional resource and knowledge base.

Support the engagement of parents and carers in children’s creative
learning and play by promoting the role of the arts in children’s overall
development and challenging misconceptions about arts practice. This
could happen by providing information on small but effective activities for
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the home, or through parents promotional postcards containing key
messages, eg ‘why music is good for you’, or through family arts-based
learning programmes in settings and arts venues.

Build an evidence bank with all partners to use as an advocacy tool
showing the success and the impact of creative practice on the lives of
children and their carers or workers. The Hub could take the role of
identifying the indicators, frameworks, factors and environments for
success, and design the format for capturing and collating evidence across
the region.

A series of advocacy opportunities should be actively pursued such as
Radio 4’s programme The Learning Curve, which regularly features the
impact of creative practice on learning. A coordinated advocacy strategy
should focus on opportunities for promoting key messages with examples
from practice across the region, and be linked in to current issues likely to
attract press attention, such as innovative approaches to parental
involvement, Extended Schools, and Sure Start.

The Hub should have representation at various stakeholder
conferences once its remit is more established and its resource,
knowledge and evidence banks are developed. Such work could be
featured as a model of good practice through a postcard, a small
promotional publication, or a DVD Toolkit based on regional projects.
5.5
Putting the plan into action
Arts Council England, Yorkshire has laid the foundations for the development plan
to be realised in a coherent and sustainable way. The plan is a significant step
forward in opening up a number of opportunities for individual and community
development right across the region. Primarily, it will fulfil the main objectives of
the Children, young people and arts strategy by enabling and embedding, with all
our partners, a culture of responsibility and commitment to children’s creative
learning and development over a significant period of time.
For the plan to realise its potential, it is essential to work together with the diverse
community of stakeholders who are also committed to the principles and values
set out in section three. Arts Council England, Yorkshire intends to facilitate the
next stage of realisation through a series of partnership discussions that will
identify an action plan for delivering the recommendations. Much of this discussion
will take place through the Early Years and Creativity Hub, complemented by
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discussion with other policy-makers and practitioners whose work is outside of, but
impacting upon, the arts and early years sectors.
For the plan to work, it is essential that we find a way of making it deliverable
within our sectors, and build capacity where it is needed. To achieve this we need
to engage with all of our partners at all levels. This process is open to all to
become involved with. We look forward to building these relationships further,
working with all our partners to meet the challenges of this region and secure a
better, and more creative, future for our children.
For more details and to get involved in the Early Years and Creativity Hub,
contact: Stephanie Simm
Education and Learning Officer
Arts Council England, Yorkshire
Tel +44 (0)1924 486208
Email stephanie.simm@artscouncil.org.uk
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