‘Hop Skip and Jump’ project collaborations: the arts in early childhood education

This article explores the Expressive Arts and Design
(EAD) area of learning and development of the
revised Early Years Foundation Stage framework
(EYFS 2012) in England. It presents and shares the
story of a series of art events and activities with
children in a collaborative project. The importance
of young children experiencing opportunities to
develop their creativity through the arts and a
range of multimodal experiences is promoted. This
is demonstrated through the project ‘Hop Skip and
Jump’ with the artist in residence who describes
the process of collaborating within a school with
staff, children and parents. This project included
providing the community art gallery to represent the
arts in education as another level of collaboration
for the community and the next phase with staff
from the University of East London.