Creative Schools
Skibbereen Community School & Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre
19 March to 3 May
Skibbereen Community School, in partnership with Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre was successful in an application to become a Creative School in 2018/9. Creative Schools is a flagship initiative of the Creative Ireland Programme to enable the creative potential of every child. The programme is led by the Arts Council in partnership with the Department of Education and Skills and the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht.
The students taking part in this module will be leading a project at their school with the aim of exploring cross curricular creativity. They will be supported to make decisions and take a lead in researching, developing, delivering and participating in their own arts project. In addition to the ongoing support from their Art Teacher, the group have an Arts Council Artist Liaison who will help the students set up a committee and communicate back to the Arts Council. They will also have supports from Programme Manager at Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre who will guide them through the administration of running an art project and help them connect with artists.
Students are invited to take roles in administration and documentation of the project. They will all take part in a Studio residency at Uillinn 14 March to 18 April. Uillinn hosts many professional artists’ local, national and international, presenting exhibitions, workshops and residency programmes. Theses artist have a lots to share with the students and can offer new learning experiences, in skills and cross curricular creative thinking. The students will engage with these artists as part of their programme both by invitation to the school and visits to the Centre. They will organise a whole school project to convey their learning on creative thinking and organise a celebration of the work at the end.
In a democratic process the students have already selected three artists to teach and inspire them including Fashion Designer Alice Halliday, artist and DIT lecturer, Jesse Jones and sculptor/animator Siobhan Mc Gibbons.
The students will be documenting their progress, both written and with images of their artwork .
‘Once we complete this project, we hope that it will open opportunities for our School to work with artists and the arts centre, next year and the year after. The project mixes Education and creativity and shows us that there are other ways to learn’ Caoimhe Casey, Clodagh Bergin and Órla Casey (CS Admin Team)
This national initiative is in its first year and we are pleased to announce that Skibbereen Community School has been awarded a second year. Look out for more developments as the project progresses.
