Situation:
The Childcare, Quality and Development Co-ordinator for Westminster recognised the need for creative and confident staff working within Early Years. Training in these areas would help them deliver a higher quality service, culminating in a greater level of creativity, confidence and communicative ability within the children in their care.
Solution:
Having worked with Tate Modern over a number of years to offer visual arts based training, it was decided to offer two further modules to create a Creativity set. Wigmore Hall were commissioned to create a chamber music module, and we were asked to devise three weekly ½ day storytelling workshops. We developed practical sessions that would enable participants to A: tell stories without a book, B: create stories with the children in their care, and C: Create stories through familiar songs and rhymes with which to broach behavioural and other issues.
Results:
The participants each grew in both confidence and ability, putting their learning directly into practice. Each workshop began with an opportunity for peers to share how they had applied the previous workshop’s learning, discussing successes and how difficulties were overcome.
Following the great success of the pilot in 2008, we have been delivering the course, once a term, and Westminster are looking for ways to accredit the three modules so as to encourage even greater participation throughout.