I am proud to have been one of the founding tutors on the Young Creatives course at Leeds Arts University. The Young Creatives is an opportunity for children aged seven to eighteen to explore Art and Design at a leading Arts University. From 2012 until 2019 I taught a range of problem solving, idea enhancing workings from illustration techniques, narrative, animation, photography, paper and textile printmaking and portfolio development - examples of which are pictured here.
These course allow children to make and play outside of formal education. According to data from the National Society for Education in Art and Design, there has been a (whopping) 40% fall in GCSE arts entries since 2010. Schemes like the Young Creatives allow the enriching power of problem solving and being creative - allowing children to persevere with failure and answer questions through visual methods, which is vitally important in self expression, confidence and building social mobility.