ETBI-News-Summer-2016-web

"Operating on the lines of best
international practice, the great
artistic and cultural reservoirs
of these cultural institutions
have been opened up to
young citizens in exciting and
engaging ways."
on the experience of the teacherartist
partnerships examined was
intended to inform the design of
future partnership initiatives and to
contribute to the development and
sustainability of each partnership
in schools. In the Summer of 2016,
this training programme on Teacher-
Artist partnership as a model of CPD
for enhancing and supporting Arts
Education in our school communities
will engage 21 teachers and 21 artists
in collaborative learning processes. The
training will be extended further in the
autumn when the teacher-artist pairs,
who have participated in the Train-the-
Trainers programme, will be facilitated
to undertake a residency programme in
respective teachers’ schools. Today’s
programme features a presentation
on the CPD model “Creative Building”
by one of the Lead Teacher-Artist
pairs supported by other colleague
facilitators.
It is intended that each Education
Centre will have the capacity to
implement this model locally and
regionally into the future through
strategic planning involving
collaboration and co-operation with the
various art organisations, educational
institutions and school communities.
Higher Education Institutions,
particularly colleges of education, have
been extending their offerings of artsin-education
courses and experience
for student teachers. The provision of a
set of artists-in-residency bursaries, by
the Arts Council, for such institutions
has been a major input to this work. It
is also relevant to note, in this context,
that the Arts Council is reviewing the
Artists-Schools Guidelines of 2006,
in consultation with partners, to bring
them more into harmony with current
circumstances and facilities.
The Arts Council has a very
distinguished record in supporting arts
organisations in their work for young
people. Significantly, in its new Strategy
2016-25, Objective 8 is focussed on
arts for children and young people, per
se. Under this objective the Council
commits itself to help “achieve the full
implementation of the Arts in Education
Charter.” One considers that the
following commitments by the Council
will significantly influence the emerging
culture change, to which we have
referred. I will quote a few of these
commitments, as I do not think that
they have got the public attention that
they deserve:
“We will invest in artists, arts
organisation and key programmes
dedicated to developing high
quality work in arts-in-education
and youth arts, and we will support
the provision of excellent arts
experience for young people in the
public domain.
“We will make provision for
children and young people a key
focus of our relationship with local
government.
“We will incorporate our
commitment to young people into
the mainstream of our decisionmaking
and, where appropriate,
into our funding agreements with
arts organisations. (P.26).”
Hopefully, the existing range of arts
organisations providing for young
people will be the beneficiaries of this
Arts Council Strategy.
It is also the case that the Educational
Community Outreach (ECO) sectors
of the National Cultural Institutions,
despite experiencing financial cutbacks,
have been making available a widerange
of imaginative and high quality
arts and cultural experiences to
children and young people. Operating
on the lines of best international
practice, the great artistic and cultural
reservoirs of these cultural institutions
have been opened up to young citizens
in exciting and engaging ways. The
co-operative efforts of the expert
personnel involved betoken major
contributions to arts in education in the
years ahead, when, hopefully, they can
be resourced at a more satisfactory
level.
A further emerging trend which, as it
evolves, will make a major contribution
to rooting arts in education at local and
regional level as normative provision, is
the Local Arts Education Partnerships
(LAEPs). Cavan-Monaghan LAEP has
been a very successful pioneer in
this arena, but other local authorities
are planning initiatives along these
lines. The impact of co-operative
efforts by the statutory agencies,
the local authorities and the ETBs, in
conjunction with the regional education
centres and other agencies, has the
potential to re-shape the landscape of
arts in education provision in Ireland
to the great benefit of young people
throughout the country.
A major facilitating factor for the artsin-education
culture change is the
availability and general distribution of
a variety of new technologies. They
open up unprecedented opportunities
for incorporating arts in education
as a normal and regular feature of
educational experience, in and out
of school. This is the first generation
when it has been generally feasible to
draw universally on this remarkable
resource. The Arts in Education Portal,
which we are celebrating today, is a
good example of this. I again wish to
record the Implementation Group’s
thanks to those able and willing to
draw up and utilise the resource. Ms.
Katie Sweeney, her Editorial Team and
Kids Own deserve our warm thanks
for this contribution to our cultural and
educational experience.
Section 1 | National and European Events issue 3 – 2016 ETBI 7