Deadline Closing for arts & creativity in education initiatives

Department of Education & The Arts Council of Ireland

The application deadline for the following Arts In Education initiatives are closing.

Creative Schools

Deadline: 2nd May 2024

Participating schools/centres will be provided with a package of supports that includes working with a Creative Associate, training and networking to support them to create their Creative School Plan, as well as seed funding to begin to implement their Plan.

Successful schools will receive €4,000 to implement their plans over the school years 2024–25 and 2025–26.

In addition to downloading and reading the guidelines, you can find out more about the Creative Schools Initiative here.

BLAST

Deadline: 10th May 2024

Minister for Education Norma Foley, TD, has invited primary, post-primary, special schools and YouthReach to apply for the BLAST – Bringing Live Arts to Students and Teachers – arts in education initiative 2024/25. The 2024 programme will enable 425 new arts in education residencies in schools over the course of the year.

BLAST aims to provide pupils in schools all over the country, time and the space to work with a professional artist/creative practitioner on imaginative and joyful projects. BLAST is a key Department of Education initiative of the Creative Youth Plan 2023-2027 which aims to foster creativity in schools focus and to provide young people with opportunities to learn and develop the key skills and competencies of collaboration, critical thinking, problem-solving, and innovation.

Innovative BLAST residencies are designed and developed between the artist/creative practitioner, teacher, students and the school community under the coordination of the 21 full-time Education Support Centres Ireland (ESCI) network.

Please see the following link for BLAST Application Guidelines and further details: https://www.gov.ie/pdf/?file=https://assets.gov.ie/288286/7c65be23-c08f-4dc0-9837-141b6345ad6c.pdf

Creative Clusters

Deadline: 10th May 2024

The Department of Education is pleased to announce the opening of a new round of Creative Clusters for the two years commencing September 2024. The programme is open to primary and post-primary schools, including special schools, as well as YouthReach centres.

Up to €575,000 has been made available this year for Creative Clusters and this will enable up to 210 schools to come together across 42 clusters.

Each Creative Cluster will receive grant funding of €3,000 per school over a two-year period to implement their project 2024–2026.

• 3 schools would receive €9,000
• 5 schools would receive €15,000

In addition to financial support above each cluster will also receive:

• A Creative Cluster Facilitator
• Teacher Substitution to attend workshops and meetings
• Room hire, travel & subsistence

Please see the following link for more details: Creative Clusters 2024 Department of Education Guidelines