Schools Excellence Fund - Creative Clusters 2023
Guidelines 2023
Creative Clusters is a pilot initiative of the Department of Education, led by and in partnership with the 21 full-time education centres (Education Support Centres Ireland - ESCI) and funded through the Schools Excellence Fund – Creative Clusters Initiative.
Application forms and guidelines in the link below:
Creative Clusters is an initiative of Creative Youth Creative Youth – A Plan to Enable the Creative Potential of Every Child and Young Person, which was published in December 2017 as part of the Creative Ireland Programme. The Creative Youth Plan aims to give every child practical access to tuition, experience and participation in art, music, drama and coding by 2022.
A Creative Cluster will typically consist of between three and five schools collaborating on the design, implementation, evaluation and dissemination of an innovative creative-learning project which supports them to address a common issue or challenge.
Each Creative Cluster will receive funding of €3,000 per school in each cluster over a two-year period to implement their project in the 2023–2025 school years (e.g. a cluster of three schools would get €9,000 over two years while a cluster of five schools would receive €15,000 over two years). Clusters will receive 50% of the total funding in Year 1, with the second 50% being provided in Year 2.
Schools in a cluster are expected to collaborate on how this funding is allocated and spent to support the implementation of their project.
In addition, paid substitution will be provided for the Regional Cluster Training event and two/three local cluster meetings per school year.
Creative Cluster applications will be assessed by the local teacher education centre. Applications will be assessed and scored against the following criteria:
- the rationale for the application
- benefits to teaching and learning
- capacity and commitment of all the schools in the cluster to participate
- children and Young People's Voices
The application process will be open from 23 March 2023 until 12 May 2023.
Application forms and guidelines in the link below:
https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/01cf0-creative-clusters/
Watch the promotional video here: https://vimeo.com/825072944?share=copy
