Busy Bunnies All Around

28 March 2023


Happy Easter from the Take Art Early Years Team! Our wish for you is that you enjoy fulfilling, rewarding and recharging times, shared with those you love. 

Our team – staff, artists and musicians – have all been super busy during the Spring Term, so we'll all take a little time out over Easter. We know how valuable this down time is to reflect, regroup and prepare for the Summer Term.

We are looking at a busy schedule that will start immediately after the holidays finish!


Making & Believing - funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation

Cross-artform artists will work with staff and children in settings in Sedgemoor, South Somerset, Derby City and Surrey, visiting each for 10 weeks to work in creative collaboration together.

A Square World by Daryl and Co, a disability lead theatre company, will tour settings during June with a beautiful non-verbal show for children aged 6 and under. Families can catch it at the Princess Theatre on Saturday 10 June – tickets will be on sale from the theatre very soon.

The show was created in collaboration with a class of 5 year olds during an artist residency at a nursery. It presents the barriers of everyday life in a playful way, opening up an understanding or solidarity around disability, without being didactic to our early years audience. The show doesn't take a sledge-hammer approach to the subject of access or inclusion, but doesn't shy away from it either. This leads to a gentle, playful yet poignant message.


SoundWaves Network SW (SWNSW) - funded by Youth Music

SWNSW is delivering best practice musical opportunities across the South West for staff and children both in settings, and by providing CPD opportunities for those working with 0 – 5 year olds. These sessions build confidence and skills in sharing music with babies and young children. 

Coming up are:

Music residencies 

Early Years music practitioners work collaboratively with children and staff in setting in Devon and Cornwall.

CPD (in-person)

Music In the Early Years: Enabling Your Musical Environment 
4pm – 6pm Wednesday, 3 May 2023 at Threemilestone Primary School, Polstain Road, Truro TR3 6DH.  Cost £7 (subsidised by SWNSW project). Supported by Youth Music, ASONE & Cornwall Music Service Trust (CMST)

  • Gain skills in developing very young children’s musicality through appropriate rhymes and simple songs. 
  • Consider the role of music within all areas of EYFS, particularly communication and personal, social and emotional development. 
  • Learn to observe young children’s spontaneous music making and reflect on the role of the adult. 
  • Help practitioners overcome their fears of engaging in and leading music activities in a safe supportive space.

For more information and booking visit this link. If you have questions please email earlyyears@takeart.org

CPD (online)

Building Confidence Using Music in EYFS – a 6 week course – fully booked for Summer 2023, but being repeated in the Autumn. Keep an eye on our website for details.

CPD (online)

Sharing the SoundWaves Network SW story .... so far!  Save the Date – booking opening soon. Thursday 13 July 7pm – 9pm. Cost: £7

Training

Applications for the Certificate for Music Educators: Early Childhood (academic year 2023/24) are now open and the training will take place at the Centre for Research in Early Childhood (CREC), Birmingham. Some SWNSW bursaries will again be available for those in the South West, email jane@takeart.org.

Opportunity

SWNSW is seeking an emerging EY music practitioner to work on a ten-week residency alongside an experienced music practitioner in the Torbay area during the Autumn Term 2023. Applications expected to close at the end of May with interviews mid June 2023.  Details to be announced on the Take Art website soon.


Other Early Years work

We will continue strategic work with partner organisations with the purpose of making the best possible creative opportunities available to the under 5’s and the people who care for them.