Since 2005, darts has been painting, storytelling and getting excited with the 0-5s across Doncaster to test the boundaries of creative approaches to learning.
This is the Story of our journey.
Over the last few years, darts has undertaken substantial pieces of work within early years settings, building some strong relationships and useful tools for creative work.
Although these relationships were sustained, the pieces of work never felt joined up, so darts approached Creative Partnerships, Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham for support to develop this work right across the early years sector, aiming to forge new relationships and extend ongoing relationships with practitioners and children. Hence the 'Daring Discoveries' project was conceived and developed in partnership with Cathy Nutbrown at the University of Sheffield.
We wanted to explore ways of working right across the sector, with Sure Start Children's Centres, non-maintained private day nurseries and school nurseries.
Working across this wide range of settings gave us access to the full age range from birth to five and the ability to work with children, both with and without their parents present.
The settings were selected in partnership with Doncaster Early Years Service based on relationships that darts already had.
In July 2005, we held a team day at The Point for all of the partners involved in Daring Discoveries. It marked the beginning of the project which involved working with two artists, six early years settings and an early years researcher to investigate successful ways of applying arts based learning.
Since then we have delivered 18 sessions at each of the six settings and together we've swum through pools of material, hidden in caves, been a bit scared, slimed paint right up our arms, painted each other's tummies and printed with them.
We've created homes for a range of animals. We've composed poems and stories. We've begun to use props and been in lots of new spaces. We've been really calm and really excited and learnt many new things together.
The project has broken new ground in the use of Artists in Residence in early years settings.
The project is unusual in:
- The wide age range of the children (birth to five years)
- The diverse range of settings, which include a play bus, a library, private day nurseries and maintained Foundation Stage settings
- The detailed documentation of processes and practices of the artists
- The development of the ORIM framework for the Arts
It has tested the boundaries of what is possible in a range of settings and has demonstrated that it is possible to work effectively and successfully on arts based approaches in a range of conditions and even in the most restricted of spaces.
In the final phase of the project, the team worked jointly in one setting, Sunny Bright Day Nursery. This setting was selected from the original six and chosen for its capacity to provide the best conditions possible for the artists, children and practitioners to work together on something new and different, using visual and dramatic approaches to the arts.
Each phase of the project has been observed using a combination of photography, film, collection of language and other visual data. The Daring Discoveries book is a snapshot from 378 hours of observations and over 6000 photographs. It contains data from the project, case studies, material sources, an explanation of the 'ORIM and the Arts' framework, and we hope will be a useful tool for all practitioners and artists.