Five Schools Across the Country to Star in RTE Creative Kids Documentary This Sunday

School buildings might be closed but pupils from five schools across Ireland are to star in an RTE One documentary Creative Kids this Sunday, 3rd May at 6.30pm. The schools include Presentation Primary School Tralee, Co. Kerry, De La Salle Boys Castlebar, Co. Mayo, Stepaside Educate Together Secondary School in Dublin, Scoil Athphoirt on Arranmore Island, Co. Donegal and Presentation Primary Warrenmount in Dublin.

The documentary is inspired by the roll-out of Creative Schools, an initiative focussing on creativity and the Arts in primary and post-primary schools and Youthreach centres all around Ireland.

Creative Schools is a flagship initiative of the Government’s Creative Ireland Programme, and puts the arts and creativity at the heart of children and young people’s lives. The initiative is led by the Arts Council in partnership with the Department of Education and Skills and the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht.

Maureen Kennelly, Director of the Arts Council said; “As everyone will see from this wonderful documentary, the Creative Schools programme is already a great success, and has changed the lives of hundreds of young people from a broad range of schools across the whole country.

“The Arts Council is very proud to be delivering this programme, and I would strongly encourage principals and teachers to consider applying so that their schools can participate in the Creative Schools initiative during the next academic year.”

Creative Kids followed five schools over the course of the academic year as they implemented the Creative Schools project and encouraged their pupils to think about the Arts and creativity in a whole new way.

Helena Hennessy, Teacher at Presentation Primary School said; “To be chosen to take part in an RTE documentary was just the icing on the cake for all of us. We never dreamed when we began our creative journey that we would have a film crew in our school documenting our process and final performance. Working with the crew was an incredible learning curve for all involved and it will be etched in our memories for many, many years to come.”

Students and teachers kicked off the Creative Schools initiative by coming together to discuss what type of projects they wanted to pursue. The projects and disciplines agreed on were driven by the students themselves in cooperation with a ‘Creative Associate’ – an artist and/or teacher engaged by the Arts Council to work with the schools to help facilitate and roll out their ideas. In many cases local artists were brought into the schools to host workshops or to work with the students on their projects.

Diarmaid O’Meara, Creative Associate at Scoil Athphoirt on Arranmore Island said; “The title of our project How to be an Explorer of Arranmore was based on Keri Smith's book How to be an Explorer of the World. The thrust of the project was to get the children observing their everyday surroundings, exploring them, using the environment as a canvas. The activities in the project allowed them to see everyday things and places in a new light, to reimagine the mundane and hopefully to give them skills which will allow them to see through a creative lens in different settings.”

The Arts Council has invited schools across the country to take part in their Creative Schools initiative, opening up the programme to another 150 schools, bringing the total number to 300. All Department of Education and Skills primary and post-primary schools, special schools and Youthreach centres are eligible to apply.

Interested schools should:

Step 1 – Get online to find out more www.artscouncil.ie/creative-schools

Step 2 – Register your school today (this can take up to 5 working days)

Step 3 – Apply online before 25 June 2020.