With increasing concerns in the UK about the positive mental wellbeing and flourishing of children, this research, using drama and creative writing with primary school teachers, children and a theatre company, looks at the links between creative processes and children's well-being. This pedagogy applies a capability approach and we use this lens to examine children's critical reflections on the project. Interview data highlight the link between agency, social imagination and subjective well-being. The study offers some concrete examples of the ways in which creative processes can move beyond an outcomebased understanding of the curriculum by offering a legitimate space for children to explore their values and develop competencies which are crucial for well-being in the 21st century.
This paper focuses on a Community of Writers creative writing project where 25 primary school pupils from lower socio‐economic backgrounds took part in creative writing workshops over a 2‐week period at a higher education institution. Using practitioner enquiry and discourse analysis, this paper views identity as participation in ‘figured worlds’ and highlights the relationship between the children's creative writing outputs and their shifting identities (Holland et al., ). A case is made that children's authentic creative writing can be nurtured by a community that promotes intertextuality and ‘hybridity’ (Bakhtin, ) as well as balancing pedagogical ‘structure’ and ‘freedom’ (Davies et al., ) in order to provide textual space for writers to enact different identities. At a time when the global figuring power of performativity (Ball, ) actively restricts the ways in which teachers and children interact, this paper also presents an informed argument for the value of school–university research partnerships.
Objective: This study sought to improve: (1) knowledge of child development among non-health child and family workers; and (2) identification and referral of children from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds at developmental risk, by partnering child health services with nongovernment early childhood education and family support services in two suburbs with high numbers of families from CALD backgrounds.
Background:Children from CALD backgrounds have increased risk of developmental problems going undetected prior to school entry, thereby missing early intervention.
Study design and methods:This was a quality improvement project. The model comprised:(1) co-locating a child and family health nurse CAFHN in a non-health setting or visits by early
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