Carrick-on-Shannon Education Centre

Carrick-on-Shannon Education Centre supports the Arts in Education through the provision of opportunities for professional development for teachers, engagement in projects such as CRAFTed, Teacher Artist Partnership (TAP), Creative Cluster and various Summer and local courses.

CRAFTed is the Design & Crafts Council of Ireland’s Primary School Visual Arts based educational programme. It promotes learning through creativity and innovation, placing professional craftspeople to work alongside teachers in primary schools. It focuses on integrated learning methodologies through the Visual Arts Curriculum, using a process-led methodology that focuses on the child’s own creativity.

Teacher Artist Partnership offers teachers the opportunity to explore the nature and educational value of partnerships between teachers and artists in supporting arts education in schools. This course potentially improves literacy, numeracy & well-being in all schools including DEIS. Many schools across the country are engaged in projects with artists, ranging from one-off artist visits to longer term projects, and in a variety of art forms. Teacher/Artist Partnership looks at the ways in which working with an artist in school can be enhanced in order to provide meaningful experiences for children and a lasting impact on school practice. Particular emphasis is on the role of the teacher and artist, their unique contributions to projects and the significant benefits that can accrue from a dynamic teacher/artist relationship in the planning and implementation of projects. Placing the teacher/artist project within the overall arts curriculum in schools and exploration of practical issues are central.

We also support clusters of schools, through the Creative Cluster scheme, to work together to progress creative projects and to experiment, innovate and collaborate on the design, implementation and evaluation of a collaborative creative learning project. Schools have access to creative people, skills and resources from their local communities.

Carrick-on-Shannon Education Centre offers a variety of artistic workshops in the Summer and various local workshops are run throughout the year.