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National Arts in Education Portal Day 2025

On Saturday November 8th, we returned to the beautiful surroundings of the East Quad at TU Dublin for the 10th annual National Arts in Education Portal Day, in partnership with the School of Art & Design. With over 100 artists, teachers and arts in education professionals in attendance, this years conference saw a mix of presentations, smaller discussion-led sessions and creative workshops to inspire and explore best practices in arts and creativity in education.

The day was jointly opened by John Walsh, Head of School of Art and Design, TU Dublin and Jennifer Buggie, National Arts in Education, Tralee Education Support Centre and Arts in Education Portal Editorial Committee Member.

Jennifer opened the conference by celebrating 10 years of the Portal, highlighting its concrete and tangible examples of practice. She described the Portal as a strong foundation to build upon—a doorway into curiosity, relationality and creativity, where arts, science, culture and people connect in meaningful ways.

Professor John Johnston, UNESCO Chair of issues-based arts education at ArtEZ University of the Arts in the Netherlands delivered a stimulating keynote address. He introduced issues-based arts education, an approach that shifts attention from creating objects to engaging with people and their stories. He emphasised the idea of the artist educator, a single creative identity that dissolves the divide between artist and teacher.

‘Artist educator is one word. Art is education – and education is art’

Thanks to all involved in making the day a huge success! Special thanks to the young performers from Swords Youth Choir, conductor Mina Eusebio and accompanist Con Diamond who closed the day with a celebratory performance.

Delegates at National Arts in Education Portal Day in TU Dublin wave up at the camera

National Arts in Education Portal Day in TU Dublin, November 2025. Photo: Ewa Figaszewska

A podcast series with selected presentations from the day will be available soon.

The Dock

‘Songs of Ourselves’ was one of the recipient projects of the 2021 Arts in Education Portal Documentation Award, the aim of which is to support the development of documented outcomes from arts in education initiatives in Ireland. The award is part of the Arts in Education Portal Editorial Committee’s commitment to supporting and recognising the value of documentation and reflection as a key component within arts in education initiatives.

From November 2020 to June 2021, George Higgs was The Dock Composer in Residence at Scoil Mhuire, Carrick on Shannon for the project ‘Songs of Ourselves’, exploring communal song forms – e.g., work songs, anthems, canons, and call and response – with the ultimate aim of creating a new composition. Based on his earlier investigations into multisensory composition (The Sense Ensemble, 2017), George asked the students to think of a song not only as sound, but as a participatory activity for all the senses. Students were encouraged to invent gestures to accompany the performance of each song and draw pictures to reflect on the various themes. A Song Scrapbook was amassed from all the sessions, featuring the finished multisensory lyric ‘The Dream of the Knockabock’.

‘The Dream of the Knockabock’ was performed at The Dock in early June, 2022 by the Scoil Mhuire Choir and the Millennium Choir. The song was a twelve-minute ‘mobile composition for multisensory voices’ created was a rich pageant of sound, movement and was a spatial performance to remember.

It was a special event for all involved and a great achievement.

View the performance below

View here the Documentation Award Series Discussion ‘Songs of Ourselves’ with composer George Higgs, teacher Noelle Igoe and The Dock’s Visual Arts and Education Manager, Laura Mahon as part of the 2021 National Arts in Education Portal Virtual Conference.

 


!!!! The 2025 National Arts in Education Portal Day – Roundup

National Arts in Education Portal Day 2025

On Saturday November 8th, we returned to the beautiful surroundings of the East Quad at TU Dublin for the 10th annual National Arts in Education Portal Day, in partnership with the School of Art & Design. With over 100 artists, teachers and arts in education professionals in attendance, this years conference saw a mix of presentations, smaller discussion-led sessions and creative workshops to inspire and explore best practices in arts and creativity in education.

The day was jointly opened by John Walsh, Head of School of Art and Design, TU Dublin and Jennifer Buggie, National Arts in Education, Tralee Education Support Centre and Arts in Education Portal Editorial Committee Member.

Jennifer opened the conference by celebrating 10 years of the Portal, highlighting its concrete and tangible examples of practice. She described the Portal as a strong foundation to build upon—a doorway into curiosity, relationality and creativity, where arts, science, culture and people connect in meaningful ways.

Professor John Johnston, UNESCO Chair of issues-based arts education at ArtEZ University of the Arts in the Netherlands delivered a stimulating keynote address. He introduced issues-based arts education, an approach that shifts attention from creating objects to engaging with people and their stories. He emphasised the idea of the artist educator, a single creative identity that dissolves the divide between artist and teacher.

‘Artist educator is one word. Art is education – and education is art’

Thanks to all involved in making the day a huge success! Special thanks to the young performers from Swords Youth Choir, conductor Mina Eusebio and accompanist Con Diamond who closed the day with a celebratory performance.

Delegates at National Arts in Education Portal Day in TU Dublin wave up at the camera

National Arts in Education Portal Day in TU Dublin, November 2025. Photo: Ewa Figaszewska

A podcast series with selected presentations from the day will be available soon.

!!!! ‘Songs of Ourselves’ Live Performance at The Dock

The Dock

‘Songs of Ourselves’ was one of the recipient projects of the 2021 Arts in Education Portal Documentation Award, the aim of which is to support the development of documented outcomes from arts in education initiatives in Ireland. The award is part of the Arts in Education Portal Editorial Committee’s commitment to supporting and recognising the value of documentation and reflection as a key component within arts in education initiatives.

From November 2020 to June 2021, George Higgs was The Dock Composer in Residence at Scoil Mhuire, Carrick on Shannon for the project ‘Songs of Ourselves’, exploring communal song forms – e.g., work songs, anthems, canons, and call and response – with the ultimate aim of creating a new composition. Based on his earlier investigations into multisensory composition (The Sense Ensemble, 2017), George asked the students to think of a song not only as sound, but as a participatory activity for all the senses. Students were encouraged to invent gestures to accompany the performance of each song and draw pictures to reflect on the various themes. A Song Scrapbook was amassed from all the sessions, featuring the finished multisensory lyric ‘The Dream of the Knockabock’.

‘The Dream of the Knockabock’ was performed at The Dock in early June, 2022 by the Scoil Mhuire Choir and the Millennium Choir. The song was a twelve-minute ‘mobile composition for multisensory voices’ created was a rich pageant of sound, movement and was a spatial performance to remember.

It was a special event for all involved and a great achievement.

View the performance below

View here the Documentation Award Series Discussion ‘Songs of Ourselves’ with composer George Higgs, teacher Noelle Igoe and The Dock’s Visual Arts and Education Manager, Laura Mahon as part of the 2021 National Arts in Education Portal Virtual Conference.