Creative Schools

Creative Schools Initiative (2022-2024)

Upon successful application, Firies NS was invited to join the Creative Schools Initiative in September 2022.                                             

Creative Schools is a flagship initiative of the Creative Ireland Programme which endeavours to enable the creative potential of every child. The initiative is led by the Arts Council in partnership with the Department of Education and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

The Creative Schools Initiative is supporting our school to put the arts and creativity at the heart of our students’ lives. The initiative is providing opportunities for our students to build their artistic and creative skills; to communicate, collaborate, stimulate their imaginations, be inventive, and to harness their curiosity. Our students are developing, implementing and evaluating the arts and creative activity throughout our school, supporting their holistic development and well-being.

We have received a suite of resources as part of the initiative, including funding of €4,000 to implement our Creative Schools Plan as well as the support of a Creative Associate,  Mieke Vanmechelen.

Mieke is guiding our school community through a range of creative projects, including drawing, film-making and the use of digital technologies:  

• Senior Infants created an Irish film entitled ‘Maidin Mhaith’ (March -May 2023). Click on the link to view these budding film-stars! https://www.facebook.com/firiesnationalschool/videos/765182708394175
• Drawing and Craft workshops were facilitated in 1^st and 5^th Classes (May 2023). They have showcased their work here. https://fb.watch/n6YFSMqbyO/
• A whole-school creative endeavour took place in June 2023, ‘Line Dance Extravaganza’. A wonderful day of fun, dancing, singing and dress-up was enjoyed by all. See if you can pick up some of our steps from these videos! https://www.facebook.com/firiesnationalschool/videos/6172928272828094 and  https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=770067451528689

 Watch this space for more updates on our Creative Schools Plan and more exciting projects for the year ahead.

 

More Information about our Creative Associate

Mieke was born in Antwerp, Belgium. As a young girl, her family moved to a farm on the Beara Peninsula. In 1996 she graduated with a BA in Philosophy and Classical Civilisation from Trinity College Dublin. In 2014 she completed an MA at Crawford College of Art and Design to further enhance and support her passion and flair for art, drawing and painting. For the last number of years, she has worked almost exclusively in digital film and moving image. Mieke is heavily involved in education and works in various capacities as a children and youth facilitator, mentor and consultant.                                                                           

Firies National School came together with three other schools to form a creative cluster. Their subsequent project, ‘Bee Creative’, was showcased in the national folk theatre, Siamsa Tire on 3rd April 2019. The stimulus for the project was bees and each school used different forms of art to portray the importance of bees in our world. The project helped develop the creative potential of every child and to give participating children a high-quality experience working with an artist and expert in their fields leading them to an appreciation of the interaction between artistic genres. Creativity and learning blossomed with wonderful colourful props, visuals, poetry, dancing and acting.