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
Creative Skills is Starcatchers’ Professional Development for Early Years Professionals.
Creative Skills artist-led training for early years professionals is energetic, colourful and fun. We build capacity by focusing on:
Your own creative confidence – everyone is creative; everyone is an artist. You can inspire, create wonder and introduce new ideas without dominating the creative process
Theory – why creativity is central to every child’s healthy development and how the expressive arts are tools for nurturing and developing this innate capacity
And practice – how to put expressive arts at the heart of your day-to-day practice and create inspirational learning spaces with babies and children.
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