Parenting case study illustrating integrated arts offer
Case study title: Beyond Enjoying and Achieving - Parenting
Region: London
Education setting: 1st Place Children and Parent’s Centre, Aylesbury Estate, Southwark
Arts partners: London Philharmonic Orchestra, resident visual artist
Eloise Robinson
1st Place Children & Parent Centre on the Aylesbury Estate in South London serves a community that includes over 2,500 families with children under five. The estate is known as an area with a lot of different issues and the Centre works hard to address some of these through the achievement of the Every Child matters outcomes.
Camilla Ford, Director of 1st Place, believes that all learning for the children who attend her centre is experiential, and should be about developing their senses and understanding of the world. She aims to enable them to become questioners, thinkers and problem solvers, and has used the arts to meet that need, working with a wide number of partners and organisations to develop the centre’s service. Amongst these partners are a selection of arts organisations and artists including the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
The London Philharmonic Orchestra work with 2 – 4 year olds and their families through their all-inclusive ‘Have a go’ sessions. Parents took part in training sessions and worked in partnership with experienced workshop leaders from the orchestra. They worked together to expose children to music and song, using voice and western classical instruments. As part of this programme, children from early years settings right across the borough came together to perform their own songs and dances in a local professional performance space. This project was specifically developed to be easily accessible to families with English as a second language.
Parents often approach 1st Place to help them solve problems in a creative way. When one child’s mother raised her concerns about her son Amon’s fear of his own shadow, the centre worked with resident visual artist Eloise Robinson to develop a shadow puppet project. Eloise created a safe space for Amon to play with shadows, giving him control over creating them and slowing leading him to gain confidence and lose his fear.
Eloise ensures that she has a strong relationship with parents at the centre, observing and documenting children’s work and taking time to share and discuss it with families at the end of each day. This not only helps to develop the children’s learning, it helps to show parents how much their child’s contribution is valued by the centre.
1st Place Children and Parents Centre is featured as a case study on Arts Council England’s ‘Beyond Enjoying and Achieving’ DVD, which will shortly be available on the Arts Council website
To find out more about the organisations involved in this case study, talk about ways of integrating the arts into your Every Child Matters offer, or to ask questions about the Arts Council’s Children, young people and the arts strategy then please contact Elizabeth Crump at Arts Council England, London , 0207608 6110.
For more information about the Aylesbury regeneration project please see:
http://www.aylesburyndc.org.uk/
More information about The London Philharmonic Orchestra please contact Clare Lovett, Director of Education and Community at or 0207 840 4226. The work with LPO was an 18 month collaboration funded by Youth Music as part of the partnership programme.