Crawley has a wide range of fantastic public spaces all providing huge potential to inspire and engage its residents. This project will encourage families to explore and learn in these great places through a series of free community events over the year. Events will be designed to encourage families to learn together through themed activities which, as well as being great fun, will support numeracy, literacy and wider learning in areas such as history and wellbeing. Free events will be held across Crawley in parks, museums, libraries and other community spaces, encouraging residents to visit some of the places that they may not have considered visiting before. Whatever the activity, everyone will enjoy the time together and come away with a greater sense of the fabulous community they are part of. It is important to us that these events are free to families on the day but we still need your help to make them happen. Even £2 will go a long way.

What we'll deliver:

• A programme of at least 7 family learning events in Crawley.

Why it's a great idea:

This project builds on our events in 2018 which reached record numbers of residents. Over 300 attended our latest event at Worth Park and more than 400 got creative as part of Crawley Chime. The aim of this project is to help families discover and celebrate the town of Crawley. Activities in the park will inspire a greater understanding of the environment, activities in museums help to improve the knowledge of the past. Getting families out into their community and being active is great for physical and mental health too. Wellbeing is fundamental to everything we do and all events will tie into the five ways of wellbeing. Participants will have the opportunity to connect with each other and learn new things about themselves and their local environment. They will have opportunities to get outdoors and be more active taking notice of the environment around them. Each activity will also involve a number of volunteers and so community members will have the opportunity to give back too.

Steps to get it done:

• Set event dates and themes in partnership with other local community organisations.
• Develop detailed plans and family learning activities.
• Develop strategy for publicity of events.
• Run events in a range of Crawley spaces across the year.
• Evaluate each event incorporating feedback to ensure future provision meets community need.

As families explore Crawley through this project, we will begin to develop a Crawley Family Learning Passport where visits can be recorded. As well as including venues involved in the project, we will be collecting ideas from families in the hope of discovering more of Crawley's hidden gems. Once complete, we envisage this to be available for wider use by the community of Crawley.