‘Our current and future communities are growing up with a global revolution in communication, technology, work, learning and leisure. To cope with the speed of such development, our children need to develop the capacity to acquire new knowledge and skills, to be able to expect the unexpected, and to do so competently and confidently.’

Searching for Meaning, by Ruth Churchill Dower and Canterbury Children’s Centre, Bradford.

The principles behind Isaacs UK’s work are intended to raise questions about our rights and responsibilities, our policy and practice development:

• recognising the individual rights of children to access cultural and creative opportunities within their natural development
• taking responsibility for fostering the right environment, resources, skills and knowledge to do so effectively
• encouraging a greater mutual understanding of difference and promoting cultural democracy and diversity as a fundamental tenet of human co-existence
• sharing knowledge and encouraging collaborative practice between creative and educational professionals to support each other’s work
• supporting investment into, and integration of, exemplar and innovative practice within the mainstream
• challenging institutionalised systems and principles that do not support individual learning needs or prepare children adequately for the future
• advocating the long term impact of high quality creative practice on the development of children’s social, physical, spiritual, cognitive, economic, technological and (inter)cultural competencies.
• not world leading but world sharing