I must say it didn't look promising. The main entrance looks like a 1970s care home entrance and I was initially rather disappointed......and then.......through those same doors there is magic.

"Bankfield Museum is an important building of architectural significance. This very grand, Italian villa is sited in Akroydon Park. The beautifully kept grounds of the park compliment this impressive building, which was once the home of Colonel Edward Akroyd, a local business man.

Bankfield mansion became a museum in 1887 when Edward Akroyd sold his home to the Halifax Corporation. Primarily Bankfield has a growing reputation as a centre for textiles and contemporary craft. At present the museum is the home of many collections such as the Duke of Wellington Regiment of the West Riding. Bankfield is of local importance enabling heritage to be preserved and displayed."

The building is in dire need of repair, paint is peeling, windows boarded up and then there's the less than imposing entrance, but it seems to be a place which is much loved and which has a quirky and engaging collection. I will be back!

This lunchtime I popped over the the Platform Gallery with Louise, Mohammed and Farida, three Reception class teachers I will be working with next term, to check out the new exhibition. Matt Roby's touring exhibition 'The Fateful Fable of Thirteen' is at the Gallery until March 17th and the teachers are keen to combine a trip to Clitheroe on the train, a visit to the castle with a visit to the exhibition as a starting point for the work I will be doing with them.

Immediately we could all see how the children could be inspired by the exhibition. It was full of extraordinary characters, story, colour and just a little bit mysterious. There is also a good chance that Matt will come to work in the school for a day as part of our project. How exciting that will be, to visit the exhibition, start to create your own response to it and then get a visit from the artist to talk about his work and help you develop your own. Way cool!

Grace from the gallery was incredibly helpful in supporting us to find a way to achieve our plans and as we left I think we all felt inspired and excited (and that's before the children are involved!) It's amazing what can happen in half an hour.

I had a planning session with reception teachers yesterday at a school where I was creative agent for 3 years. I am going to be working with them as an artist on a short project which will explore ways to help their pupils to achieve point five on the Early Years Goals

' Explores colour, texture, shape, form and space in two or three dimensions'

It is a very artistic school, pupils sing, dance, create and play music regularly (particularly drumming) and yet because pupils struggle to achieve point 5 on the goals pupils at the end of reception rarely achieve point 8, which reflects a culmination of early years goals

'Pupils express and communicate their ideas, thoughts and feelings by using a widening range of materials, suitable tools, imaginative and role play, movement, designing and making, and a variety of songs and musical instruments.'

We spent a very fruitful morning exploring the challenges, how and when pupils engage most fully and where I might make some impact. Teachers reflected that their expectations of where pupils are at in relation to their creative skill development is often out of sync with the children's actual levels and that teacher focus on finished product as a tool to inspire children's creativity can result in frustration for both pupils and teachers. Children's starting level in spoken English is also generally lower than the national standard and developing a vocabulary which enables them to communicate their ideas and engage creatively is also an area of focus during this year.

Teachers told me that their pupils have generally been brought up in homes where creative play, mucking about, building stuff and knocking it down, making a mess and creative experimentation is not part of the culture, so the confidence that comes from that experience is missing when children come to school.

We decided that my role in class would be to provide immersive and playful opportunities for children to experiment and build the skills, and particularly the confidence, to be able to make choices and allow themselves to take risks. Alongside this we will provide space and time for teachers to develop their own skills and confidence so they can confidently model this behaviour for their pupils.

As we were meeting I thought about our young nieces and nephew and how different this aspect of their lives is to those children I will be working with. The confidence to play, experiment and be imaginative is generally inspired by the behaviour of the adults around us when we are young. I remember when our niece Thea was very young that my sister commented that 'she must think she is growing up in a musical'. Singing, songs and stories were such a significant part of her life that anyone around her could burst into song at any moment.

The picture above is a still from a stop motion animation we made with Thea starring the crocodile she had built with her mum and myself one weekend and we frequently get involved (not always willingly) in her incredibly imaginative play which is explored through a rich and diverse vocabularly.

I sometimes forget how lucky I am to have been brought up in this kind of a family and the impact this has had on my education and creativity as an adult. I don't come from an educated or prosperous family - I was the first person in my extended family to go to university - but I do come from a family which knew either instinctively or through their own experiece, of the value of playfulness, story and experience and I will always be grateful for that.

I used to know which machine was the best (and more importantly which were the dodgy ones), which tumble dryer was the most effective and how to load the spinner to remove the creases from your clothes pre-drying. I moved around the launderette with a confident ease.

Today I was flumoxed. Couldn't get the door shut on the machine, spent ages staring at new instructions on the wall (you pay centrally these days) and generally looked like the woman whose washing machine has broken and is negotiating a forgotten world.

I use to love this launderette. I loved the professionally hand written funny signs and classic styling. Nearly all that has gone now - the technology may have been updated, but the new signs are mass produced or badly hand written, the classic prints of rural scenes faded to blue and the furniture in dire need of updating.

It looks like this place could be our friend for a while though - it's the tax bill or a new washing machine for now and whilst I understand neither particularly well, I am less afraid of the launderette.

I am really enjoying this dry, crisp. cold weather. It finally feels like winter and time to get out and enjoy the world.