Artists to help spark creativity in the classroom

Artists will work with schools to help place creativity at the heart of young people’s learning under a new initiative.

Up to 150 schools across the country will participate in the pilot phase of the “creative schools” programme, which will see artists, creative practitioners and educators help develop programme of arts and creative work.

In addition, participating schools will receive a further range of supports including a once-off grant of €2,000 and training for teachers in the school.

It forms part of the Government's "creative Ireland programme", which seeks to promote the arts and creativity in young people's lives.

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Minister for Education Richard Bruton said creativity will become increasingly important for children to flourish in a fast-changing world.

“If you look at the way education is going, we talk about the flipped classroom, where people learn through doing work creatively, trying to solve problems using maths, using creative thinking to solve problems, that’s the way our world is going,” he said.

He added: “The arts challenge a person to think differently and be inventive in finding solutions to problems. That is why participation in the arts is ideal for equipping young people with the ability to be inventive, critical and adaptable.

Orlaith McBride, director of the Arts Council, encouraged parents to bring this initiative to the attention of their children's school and urged school to register to take part from today.

“The most important thing is for schools to confirm their interest in developing the arts and creativity at their school, to show that the school leadership is on board, and that children and young people will be facilitated to have a central role in planning for creativity in their school. Wherever your school is at, this is a really exciting opportunity,” Ms McBride said.

Interested schools are invited to go online and apply between February 20th and March 22nd.

Participating schools will be announced in May and work will begin in schools in September.

Schools selected to participate in the pilot initiative will receive one day’s induction/training for school coordinators where they will meet with other participating schools and with the Creative Schools team.

An artist or “creative associate” will support the school for up to nine days over the 2018–2019 school year.

The school will have flexibility in how they wish to schedule these days, while the creative associate will support the school to develop a unique programme for the arts and creativity, and will assist in creating or developing links between schools and with artists and arts and cultural organisations locally and/or nationally.

Where schools have existing school plans encompassing artistic, cultural and creative activity, the creative associate will assist the school to review, build on and develop these plans.