Foundation Stage

Creative Development

Creativity is fundamental to successful learning. Being creative enables babies and young children to make connections between one area of learning and another. They need opportunities to explore and share their thoughts, ideas and feelings through a variety of art, maths, design and technology, music, movement, dance and imaginative and role-play activities.

To give all children the best opportunity for effective creative development, practitioners should give particular attention to:

• a stimulating environment in which creativity, originality and expressiveness are valued;
• a wide range of activities to which children can respond by using many senses;
• sufficient time for children to explore, develop ideas and finish working at their ideas;
• children feeling secure enough to take risks, make mistakes and be adventurous;
• valuing children's own ideas and not expecting them to reproduce someone else's picture, dance or model, for example;
• opportunities for children to express their ideas through a wide range of types of representation;
• resources from a variety of cultures to stimulate different ways of thinking;
• opportunities to work alongside artists and other creative adults;
• opportunities for children with visual impairment to access and have physical contact with artefacts, materials, spaces and movements;
• opportunities for children with hearing impairment to experience sound through physical contact with instruments and other sources of sound;
• opportunities for children who cannot communicate by voice to respond to music in different ways, such as gestures;
• accommodating children's specific religious or cultural beliefs relating to particular forms of art or methods of representation.