Press release
Minister Foley announces 78 additional schools joining the Schools Excellence Fund – Creative Clusters initiative
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Published on
Last updated on
The Minister for Education Norma Foley today announced the creation of 21 new 2022 Creative Clusters comprising 78 schools. Creative Clusters is an initiative taking place as part of Creative Ireland and under the Schools Excellence Fund. The Department of Education’s budget for Creative Clusters in 2022 is €595,000.
Under this scheme to support schools to build capacity in creativity, schools in each cluster will enjoy access to a specialist facilitator, artist or creative expertise in whatever their chosen area of interest or theme might be. These resources will help the schools to build a project of learning and activities tailor-made for their students. As part of this funding allocation, a cluster may receive up to €15,000 funding to help bring their plans and ideas to fruition in 2022-2024.
Minister Foley said:
“Creative Clusters is an excellent initiative that supports students to develop their creativity, learn to adapt and collaborate and provides them with real opportunities to express themselves in a variety of exciting new ways.
“Today I am delighted to announce the 78 schools that are coming together to form 21 new Creative Clusters. I would like to welcome these new schools into this Schools Excellence Fund initiative, and I look forward to seeing how these exciting projects develop over the coming two years. This is a wonderful opportunity for schools to work together on a project of their choice. Schools are given complete freedom to design and develop their own project, with support from a local facilitator and their local education centre.
“This year has once again seen a very significant level of interest from schools applying to participate in the 2022 Creative Clusters initiative across the country. In the five rounds from 2018 to 2022, a total number of 1,276 schools have applied to participate in Creative Clusters, with 375 schools shortlisted and invited to participate. I hope that this exciting initiative will help schools to further enhance creativity in their classrooms.
“In addition, the new BLAST initiative I announced in 2021 will also provide opportunities for schools to collaborate with established artists, supporting our children and young people to collaborate and engage in creative and critical thinking – all crucial skills for their futures. Applications for BLAST 2022 will close on 30 September 2022 and I look forward to finalising the details of this exciting programme in the coming weeks.”
The next Creative Ireland Plan 2023-2027 is currently in development and the Department of Education along with other departments are in the process of drafting actions that can be delivered as part of this new plan.
The Creative Ireland Programme is a culture-based, all of government initiative which places creativity at the centre of public policy, and is designed to promote individual, community and national wellbeing. Creative Schools and Creative Clusters are two of the key “in-school” initiatives developed and rolled out under Pillar 1 – Creative Youth.
Creative Clusters is a pilot initiative of the Department of Education, led by and in partnership with the 21 full-time education centres and funded through the Schools Excellence Fund. A Creative Cluster consists of between three and five schools collaborating on the design, implementation, evaluation and dissemination of an innovative arts and creative learning project which supports them to address a common issue or challenge, identified by that cluster. Clusters can consist of primary schools only, post-primary schools only or a combination of primary and post-primary schools.
The Schools Excellence Fund is an initiative of the Department of Education to encourage and recognise excellence and innovation in our schools. The Schools Excellence Fund operates in a range of areas. These are:
The BLAST programme (Bringing Live Arts to Students and Teachers) will enable up to 425 new Arts-in-Education Residencies in schools each year. The closing date for applications is 30 September 2022.