By Henry Mathias, Strategic Lead for the Health and Social Care Standards

We are currently seeing a wonderful growth of expressive arts activities for children attending early learning and childcare services. It’s not just that there are a lot more of them, they are also much better quality. 

It wasn’t so long ago that it was common in nurseries to see rows of almost identical artwork produced by different children. Now the Care Inspectorate is finding much more individual expression and a far wider range of creative experiences. For example, as well as traditional painting and play dough, expressive arts activities often include storytelling, singing, music, dance, loose parts play, drama and pretend play.    

We are also finding that expressive arts have a transformative effect on child development. Creative play helps children flourish as confident, resilient and happy individuals and it is vital for child development. Creativity is a key ingredient for children to learn how to follow their curiosity, solve problems and make sense of the world.

This is why we have published the new resource Our Creative Journey, which was launched last week at Hillend Children’s Centre in Greenock by Minister for Childcare and Early Years Maree Todd and the Care Inspectorate’s Chief Executive Karen Reid.

This resource shares good practice examples of expressive arts we have found across different types of early learning and childcare provision from the length and breadth of Scotland. Working collaboratively with partner organisations, we identified some inspiring examples of expressive arts to share with everyone working with children and young people in different settings. 

For example, we include a private nursery in Dundee where children are benefitting from developing expressive arts activities, such as painting and drama, in a natural environment outdoors. An example from a local authority nursery near Dunbar features Stripy, a simple puppet made from an egg box and a stripy glove, who has made a big difference to the children and staff. There are also examples from out of school care, such as a service located in the Gorbals where children are making the most of a specialised music room including making their own CD. We also feature examples from childminders, such as a group of children attending a childminder in Fife, who make up their own modern nativity play.

Our Creative Journey has been produced as a printed document, but also a live resource with practice examples regularly updated on the Care Inspectorate’s The Hub website.

We’re always happy to hear from services who have examples they would like to feature on The Hub. If you have a practice example you’d like to share please complete the Submit Your Story form on the website.