Professor Christine PASCAL, PhD, MSocSc

Professor Christine Pascal OBE is Director of Centre for Research in Early Childhood (CREC), an independent charitable research centre, based at the St Thomas Children’s Centre in Birmingham and, along with Professor Tony Bertram, is also Director of Amber Publications & Training. She was a teacher in primary schools in Birmingham from 1976 to 1985, before moving into the university sector and specialising in early childhood research and evaluation projects. She has been Director of the Effective Early Learning (EEL) Project, the Accounting Early for Life Long Learning (AcE) Project, and was the National Evaluator of the DfES Early Excellence Centre Programme.

Currently, Christine is President of the European Early Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA). She was President of the British Association for Early Childhood Education from 1994-1997, and is now Vice President. She has also done extensive work at government level to support the development of early years policy, sitting on a number of national committees, has served as a ministerial advisor, and since 2000 has been an Early Years Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Select Committee on Education. She has written extensively on early childhood development and the quality of early education services and served as an Expert Advisor to Dame Tickell’s review of the EYFS in England. She developed a cross-national Early Years policy comparison tool as part of a project conducted with the IEA (Netherlands) and was awarded a Nursery World Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012. drchrispascal@crec.co.uk

Moonbeams Magic: Participation, Creativity and Deep Level Learning

This presentation will explore what we have learned through the Moonbeams Project about how artists and early years practitioners can work in creative partnerships with children to develop magical learning experiences. I shall explore the developing competencies of children, artists and early years practitioners as they engage in creative processes and how deep level learning occurs when participatory practices are realised.