I Am Creative – A Research Report
Íoslódáil: "I Am Creative – A Research Report"
‘I am Creative’ is a pilot initiative of the Government of Ireland’s Department of Education (DE). The initiative is managed by the National Arts in Education Administrative Office at the Tralee Education Support Centre, under the direction of the National Director and National Advisor for the Integration of the Arts in Education (DE, Curriculum and Assessment Policy [CAP] Unit). This pilot initiative was designed to explore ways in which artists, members of the school leadership team, teachers and Special Needs Assistants (SNAs) could work together to enhance the provision for arts education in Special Education (SE) settings.
The ‘I am Creative’ pilot initiative comprised three residential training weekends (Friday evenings and Saturdays) for six participating artists and four staff members from each of the six participating schools. One artist was assigned to each school for a residency period of 20 hours. (The only available TAP trained artists within the Kildare and Laois ESC catchment area for the duration of the initiative were visual artists.) Each training weekend was followed by at least one school-artist engagement. This enabled the generation of a shared, iterative learning loop throughout. Outside of this, the timeline and structure of the residencies were decided at local level, and determined by the needs of participating children and young people.
The aims of the research study were to:
• Evaluate the effectiveness of ‘I am Creative’ as a model for improving arts education in SE settings
• Uncover enablers and barriers to collaborations with artists in SE settings
• Provide illustrative exemplars of collaborations with artists in SE settings
• Contribute evidence-based recommendations for the national scaling up of ‘I am Creative’ across Ireland’s special schools and post-primary SE settings.