1.3 Critically analyse how creativity and creative learning can support children’s emotional, social, intellectual, communication and physical development.
4.2 How do you support other to develop their practice in promoting creativity and creative thinking? Creativity and creative learning are often areas where people feel that unless they have personally achieved a high level, they cannot work effectively with children. This can be true when working with older children but not the case when working with young children. It is important that children are given opportunities to be creative and that they see positive role models. This means that confidence and reassurance is often required when offering support to other adults in the setting. It is a good idea to look for areas where people are comfortable and aim to enhance these so that they can gain confidence. Show not tell – some people find it hard to visualise what we mean by allowing children to be creative. It can be helpful to show video clips and other sources that show situation where children are being creative. Suggest and discuss – it is worth making suggestions and discussing issues that are holding staff back from being creative with children. Staff need to take small steps towards a more creative approach rather than making sweeping changes.
Staff can gain confidence by seeing how children respond positively to small changes. Role model – it is important that all staff act as role models, if you want to create a creative environment. This means letting staff see that change is good. Evaluation – sometimes changing the way I work and the staff work will have unforeseen consequences, this means after any changes, it is worth spending time with staff to talk about what has been positive and what has not worked. This avoids staff from giving up if what they have tried has not had the effect they desired. Understand people’s limits – everyone has limits, they may be happy for children to mix paint on palettes, but not on the table. It is important to discuss these limits as sometimes people fear that allowing children to be more creative will mean anarchy.
