Starcatchers is the leading national organisation specialising in Arts and Early Years, working across sectors with Artists and other practitioners to develop their expertise through artist opportunities and Creative Skills training.
Creative Skills Training
We believe in the transformational power of the arts to help our children lead healthier, happier lives, and we want to work with practitioners across education, health, play and the arts to put the arts and creativity at the heart of Early Years practice in Scotland.
We deliver a series of ground-breaking Creative Skills training courses for early years practitioners and students in a number of local authorities across Scotland. The Creative Skills Programme empowers adults who work with young children, helping them to feel and be more creative, promoting an engaging, playful, open-ended and child-centred approach.
All our training is run by artists and facilitators who specialise in creative activity for the very young, using playful, child-led experiences that help support the delivery of key policies.
Our core training programme is funded by the Scottish Government. For those who complete the Creative Skills training programme, we also offer an SQA-approved level 7 qualification Creative Skills in early Childhood Practice (24 credits).
Register your interest for Creative Skills in Glasgow
Artist Development
We support artists across all artforms at different stages of their careers. We have a number of opportunities for those who are committed to developing work with or for young children age 0-5.
Playspace
Playspace is Starcatchers’ artist development programme.
Find out more about Playspace here
Artists, Art and Early Childhood
Starcatchers is a lead organisation for a two year European research project Artists, Art and Early Childhood. Together with Compagnie ACTA (France) and 2 Turven Hoog (Netherlands), this project is funded by Erasmus Plus.
Find out more about our Artists, Art and Early Childhood project
Meet our current Associate Artists and see what they are up to on behalf of Starcatchers
Bespoke Training
We work directly with organisations to deliver bespoke training – past clients have included NDNA, Aberdeen City Council, Dundee City Council, University of West of Scotland, SOSCN, Midlothian Association of Play and SCMA. The kinds of training we offer:
In-service days, linking the arts and creativity to key policies and curriculum, as well as practical sessions exploring examples of playful, child-led experiences
Working directly with organisations/Early Years settings, from one off sessions to inspire staff, to working on a longer term basis to put the arts and creativity at the heart of practice
Bespoke training programmes for third sector organisations who are looking for their staff to work with children in a more creative way
Break out sessions and practical workshops for conferences across Health, Education, Play and Early Years
For more information about Creative Skills bespoke training, contact Catherine Wilson.