ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the arts programme in a particular early childhood centre, and describes the particular characteristics of the centre. This involves an explanation of the centre's educational, physical, social and cultural environment. The research role in the development of various issues in the centre's programme is discussed along with the centre's position in the international discourse arts-based early childhood education. The story of the research journey by the centre and its staff and children is significant, since it illustrates a kind of early learning environment, which has explored many research approaches to develop a curriculum. The research involves musicians, each quite individual in their approach and whose own work with the children evolved with experience and reflection, against a background of evolving and developing curriculum approaches across the whole centre. That the arts became central to the ways teachers worked with the children is a fundamental outcome of the research story.
