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Creative Schools Initiative 2022-2024

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:  

 

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.                                                                           

Creative Clusters

Creative Clusters is an initiative which demonstrates how creative practices can support clusters of schools to work together to address common learning challenges. It aims to promote new ways of working and collaboration between schools and to provide an opportunity for schools to experiment, innovate and collaborate on the design, implementation and evaluation of a creative learning project.

2024

The children in Sixth class were introduced to the art of ceramics, with the guidance of artist Kelly Mc Grath from  Blue Bird Pottery Studio. The children got the opportunity to explore clay and clay techniques. They created a file which was fired in a kiln and glazed. The tiles were then compiled to create a mosaic which is now displayed in our school.     The collective artwork  captures the children’s learning and creativity. Many thanks to all in Kerry County Arts and Kerry County Council.

2019

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.