Spark's Early Years Work

The Festival always has an Early Years focus, and also encompasses training for artists and educators interested in creating work for very young children.

The arts play an important part in a child‘s development, and The Spark wants to raise awareness and share the good practice and skills of performers and artists who work with The Spark and who specialise in early years work.

Leicester Early Arts Partnership

This is a group of representatives of various organisations in Leicester, with an interest in early arts practice. In addition to The Spark, Curve and The Mighty Creatives, we have representatives from SDSA, Early Prevention, Sure Start Centres and Pre-school Learning Alliance. The group hopes to continue to promote arts for early years through supporting training events for arts practitioners and educators in early years, and by creating an awareness of the opportunities and links to be made from early arts for young children, and training for educators and parents.

To join for free - please email hazel@themightycreatives.com

Earlyarts Pathfinder

The Spark Festival, in partnership with Curve, is pleased to have been made an Earlyarts Pathfinder.

Pathfinder Partners were chosen for their excellent track record in training and creative development of the arts, cultural and early years workforce. We will be delivering Earlyarts' highly popular Professional Development Days across the region, ensuring that every professional that works with children and families will be able to access creative training in their area.

Our next Pathfinder event for 2012 is "Engaging Parents through Interactive Play". Please click here for more information.

For more information about Earlyarts click here

Lighting the Fire

In 2011, the Spark Festival and Curve once again ran a series of CPD events leading up to the Festival. These events were run in conjunction with The Mighty Creatives, and were available to LEAP network members. There was a series of seminars and practical workshop sessions through Jan - May, with specific events tied in to the festival in May/June 2011. For more information - follow the link below.