Colin Barry

My name is Colin Barry and I’m principal of Scoil Chroi Iosa primary school in Newcastle, Galway City. We are a growing school of roughly 110 children who come from a variety of multi-cultural backgrounds. This gives our school a distinctly vibrant feel and makes it an important hub for the local community. We aim to provide for the holistic education of all our students through a variety of modern, research-based methodologies. One of the most effective teaching methodologies we have found is to teach children through the medium of the creative arts. We believe this transcends cultural differences, language barriers and academic aptitude. We, as a whole school community, decided to proactively move in this exciting new direction about 4 years ago. In this challenging endeavour, we sought guidance and support from many fantastic arts organisations and individual creative practitioners based in and around Galway City.

Our school’s journey through the creative arts is still ongoing and we are open to working with any artists who wish to engage with creative children. Recently our promotion of the creative arts was recognised by Baboro when we won their “Above and Beyond” award for consistently succeeding in offering creative outlets to our pupils, in which they can learn and grow.