Events

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Earlyarts Professional Development Day for the South West (northern hub) Hosted by 5x5x5=creativity

Friday 4 February 2011 at the egg theatre, Bath (directions)

10.00 am – 4.00pm  (Coffee available from 9.30am)

Theme: Reflective Journals this is an opportunity to consider and explore the use of reflective journals: visual and written journals of adults and learning journals for children

For: Artists, early years practitioners, heads of centres, cultural managers, local authority advisors, early years professionals, arts and cultural organisations

Programme:

10.00 Earlyarts Welcome: Penny Hay, Director of Research 5x5x5=creativity, Senior Lecturer, Arts Education, Bath Spa University

10.15: Reflective Journals: presentation by Penny Hay: theory and practice

11.15 Case studies: Learning Journals: Twerton Infant School Bath and Batheaston Primary School

12.00 Earlyarts Knowledge: key events coming up in the sector, review of the latest research and publications

12.30 Lunch and Networking (please own lunch or money for café at the egg or nearby)

13.30 Practical Workshops*: Two one hour workshops with 5x5x5=creativity artists.

Visual journals with Helen Lawrence

Written journals with Catherine Lamont-Robinson

Build your practice-based skills at the same time as developing clear links into good Early Years practice.*

15.30 Sharing Experiences/Feedback, learning journeys and delivery plans.

16.00 Close

Places are free to Earlyarts Members, of £50 for non members.

Book your place online at www.earlyarts.co.uk

*Practical Workshops:

Workshop 1: Visual journals with Helen Lawrence

In this workshop we will explore different ways of documenting and using visual journals as reflective aids and learning tools. The discussion areas and activities include:

Conversation around the purpose of visual journals:

• a source for conversation around the development of ideas and visual experiences

• harness your own creativity through experiential learning and critical reflection

• fostering creativity and innovation in children

• develop a practice of communication and collaboration

• exploring how to encourage children to think both creatively and critically

• a way of supporting children’s growing understanding of the world around them, through documentation

• a way of storing, formulating and highlighting ideas, memories, moments of peoples lives, thoughts, processes, ideas, hopes and dreams

• a way of exploring in depth a theme or concept

• a free way to allow imagination to develop, a way to explore ideas without the pressure of a prescribed outcome.

Practical ways of using visual journals:

- sketches, drawings, rubbings, prints and paintings in a variety of media

- experiments with line, tone, colour, pattern, shape/space, texture

- experiments with working on different surfaces

- photographs, magazine, newspaper cuttings, fabrics

- written ideas, thoughts, sensations and feelings - notes of sounds, smells, temperatures, atmospheres

Biography

My background is across disciplines, using collage and textiles to weave stories. The themes I constantly return to are around childhood, myths, symbols, magic and imagination. Visual Journaling is a key part to the process of freeing up the imagination. The journey can go anywhere, my Journals have become books in their own right, turning the journal itself into a piece of art. As a 5x5x5=creativity artist, I have worked with primary aged children over the past six years. Working with them has informed my creative practice, my reflective journaling alongside the children has been woven into my practice. The dialogue between the children and myself about our creative ideas is an open conversation, recorded in various ways within the visual journal.

Helen Lawrence

Workshop 2: Written journals with Catherine Lamont-Robinson

In this workshop we will explore diverse ways of capturing and reflecting upon the complex and unique strands of enquiry that evolve in settings. The discussion areas and activities include:

• Sharing our individual observational strengths and blind-spots, then extending our range of perceptions.

• Reference to current research into memory-retrieval cues (Memon and Bull).

• Exploring ways of documenting children’s, albeit transitory, multi-sensory engagement through whole-body observation.

• Tracking evolving group dynamics which support creative relationships and providing opportunities to support less confident individuals – adults and children!

• Investigating diverse ways of recording spontaneous observations as a resource for further discussion and reflection.

• The role of individual case studies within 5x5x5=creativity research.

Biography

As a 5x5x5=creativity artist and more recently mentor, I have worked in a variety of settings over the past five years with children ranging from two-three year olds and students aged eighteen. My particular research interest lies in multi-sensory practice as I feel passionately that engagement in the creative process and the use of sensory materials supports not only the children with profound and multiple disabilities – but all children/students/practitioners

Catherine Lamont-Robinson