Specialist Leaders in Cultural Education (SLICE®) Early Years Fellowships 2019

Holmes, Rachel ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0114-5477, MacRae, Christina, Moakes, Kerry and McNulty, Jo (2019) Specialist Leaders in Cultural Education (SLICE®) Early Years Fellowships 2019. Research Report. Curious Minds.

Preview

Published Version Available under License In Copyright. Download (32MB) | Preview

Abstract

This project, involving five nursery schools across the North West of England is part of a larger scheme run by Curious Minds, Arts Council England’s North West Bridge organisation. SLiCE is a one-year fellowship programme for middle and senior leaders within Teaching School Alliances and Multi-Academy Trusts, and is focused on developing the fellow’s capacity to strategically support cultural education in their own school and across the alliance. This report brings together the findings from the five SLiCE research projects that were run specifically in Early Years settings from 2018-2019. All five SLiCE fellowships had an overall enquiry question: “What role could cultural organisations have in supporting schools to think differently about arts, creativity, and cultural education underpinning the relationships between wellbeing and literacy in the early years?” Curious Minds, who provided the funding resources, were clear that “thinking differently” produced by the collaboration should flow both ways and the role of the SLiCE fellows was to provoke generative practice through this two-way encounter, between a cultural organization and a school. Manchester Metropolitan University were commissioned by Curious Minds to support the research aspect of the projects. Appendix I (page 44) outlines the programme of activities and outputs the researchers planned in order to support the SLiCE Fellows and their cultural partners. SLiCE Fellows and Cultural Organisations Project one: Moving together: a dance collaboratory in the Nursery SLiCE Fellow: Lisa Taylor (Headteacher at Martenscroft Nursery School and Children’s Centre) Cultural Partner: Sam Broadbent (Company Chameleon) Early Year Practitioner: Shabnam Amin (Martenscroft Nursery School and Children’s Centre) Project Two: Will there be fragile things? SLiCE Fellow: Sue Allan (Headteacher at Ribblesdale Nursery School Cultural Partner: Elaine Bates (Manchester Museum) Project Three: Ebbs and flows: moving through the nursery day SLiCE Fellow: Tara Entwistle (Headteacher at Newtown Nursery School) Cultural Partner: Anne O’Connor and Anna Daly (Primed for Life) Project Four: Our Nursery School is in an art gallery SLiCE Fellow: Colette Bentley (Headteacher, East Prescot Road Nursery) Artist: Denise Wright Film-maker: Jake Ryan Early Year Practitioners: Jess Tinsley; Craig Bolton; Moira Kelly; Joan Buckland; Lynne Higginson; Bev Moran; Colette Byrne; Jenn Keeley; and Lesley Addley (East Prescot Road Nursery) Cultural Partner: Debbie Goldsmith and Deborah Riding (Tate Liverpool) Project Five: More than Music: Language, Literacy and Laughter! SLiCE Fellow: Shamim Ashraf (Headteacher at Stoneyholme Nursery School) Cultural Partner: Ben McCabe and Anni Tracy (More Music Morecambe) Research leads: Dr Christina MacRae; Professor Rachel Holmes, Dr Jo McNulty; and Ms Kerry Moakes (Manchester Metropolitan University)