We are delighted to be working in partnership with the Teacher-Artist Partnership (TAP) on a special initiative bringing together 7 teacher/artist pairs. The TAP programme supports and enhances arts-in-education in primary schools across Ireland, in which participating teachers and artists work together in collaboration in the classroom.

Kids’ Own have come on board to deliver a special initiative aiming to support Teacher-Artist pairs in developing resources in documenting and engaging collaboratively online. We have developed an exciting and practical programme of training, mentorship and documentation supports.

Our initiative has four main elements:
1. An online documentation training programme

This consisted of five online sessions exploring specific skills for documenting, collating, editing and presenting work. Workshops included: What is creative documentation – facilitated by Ann Donnelly; Documenting as part of your process – facilitated by Julie Forrester; Digital tools for creative collaboration and documentation – facilitated by John D’Arcy; Presenting your creative self and work – facilitated by Yvonne Cullivan, and Editing and curating your work – facilitated by Vanya Ward-Lambrecht.

2. A mentorship programme

The Teacher-Artist pairs chose from a panel of mentors that they can connect with for two-to-one focused guidance during their collaboration with schools. Mentors included Maree Hensey, Ann Donnelly, Jennie Guy and Yvonne Cullivan.

3. Video Series

Each partnership will work with the Kids’ Own team to select and organise documentation gathered during their creative engagement with schools and will collaborate with Kids’ Own in a series of face-to-face interviews reflecting on specific themes. This content will be developed into a video series, which will be published online on the Arts in Education Portal.

4. Publication

A magazine publication will also be developed, utilising documentation gathered to profile the work of the participating teacher–artist pairs within the context of the wider TAP programme.

We have just finished up our series of workshops and are now working on collating all the wonderful documentation from the Teacher-Artist Pairs. They have been working on some really interesting projects so we are looking forward to seeing more!