Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 4 May 2017
115. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Education and Skills the progress made to date with regard to the commitment by his Department in the arts in education charter to greater out-of-hours use of schools facilities to give children and young people access to arts activity; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21295/17]
View answerThe Arts in Education Charter, launched in 2013, has been a landmark development. The Charter is an initiative of my Department, the Department of Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, working in association with the Arts Council. Good progress has been made on implementation of the Charter objectives to date in relation to the use of school facilities and the integration of arts in education as outlined in the following:
Out-of-school facilities and out of hours use of school facilities
The Arts in Education Charter specifically outlines that the Minister for Education and Skills and the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs commit to greater use of out of-school facilities and out of hours use of schools facilities to give children and young people access to arts activity.
This is current practice under Departmental Circulars M18/05 and 16/05, where schools are urged to give serious consideration to making their schools facilities available to the local community after formal school hours for play and recreation purposes, where possible. The purpose of the circulars is to urge Trustees and Boards of Management to consider facilitating such requests where possible. In urging and encouraging the Trustees and Boards of Management to respond sensitively to this need, my Department fully appreciates that the decision ultimately lies with the relevant Board or Trustees and that the first priority at all times should be the interest of the school, its teachers and pupils.
Many schools already make their premises available to the local community outside of school hours and schools profit from an improved relationship with the wider community as a result. Good relations between the school and the community can be beneficial when it comes to seeking placements for work experience, outlets for community service, or when schools seek to access local services and expertise, including the arts. Being linked in effectively with the local community can help the school to provide a wider curriculum and range of co-curricular activities. It is for this reason that my Department has published in 2016 “Looking at our Schools 2016” – A Quality Framework for Primary Schools and “School Self-evaluation Guidelines for Post-Primary Schools”. These guidelines suggest that the relationships between the school and the wider community should form one of the self-evaluation criteria for schools. Schools shall now in their school policies and plans, where possible, include arts-in-education opportunities as an important aspect of enriching the curriculum and the wider life of the school. These policies should realise the complementarities between arts education and arts-in-education, and will be referenced in the upcoming guidelines regarding out of hours use of school buildings.
School Policies
The Arts in Education Charter envisaged that schools, in their school policies and plans, shall incorporate arts in education opportunities as an important aspect of enriching the curriculum and the wider life of the school. The Charter Implementation Group has the agreement of my Department's Inspectorate to assist schools in this aspect of their school planning and self-evaluation.
Capital Provision
My Department has agreed that provision for arts-in-education practice and for the wider education agenda will be reflected in the design and equipping of school buildings, and the parallel need for the design of new schools and other education buildings to take account of the particular needs – both directly educational and more widely community-based – of the arts, in the context of available resources.
