Ministers Josepha Madigan, Joe McHugh and Katherine Zappone today announced the doubling of Creative Schools to 300, with 150 new schools to be added in 2019.

Developed in association with CCE, the Creative Schools initiative aims to put the arts and creativity at the heart of children’s and young people’s lives.

Participating schools will understand, develop and celebrate their engagement with the arts, empowering them to bring about real change in the way they work. They will draw on the range of resources within their school and wider community, developing new ways of working that reinforce the impact of creativity on student learning, development and well-being.

Schools will be allocated a Creative Associate, who will support the school for a maximum of nine days over the 2019–20 school year. The Creative Associate will support the school to develop a Creative School Plan and will assist in creating or developing links between schools and with artists and arts and cultural organisations locally and/or nationally. In addition, schools can avail of a grant of €2,000 to implement their plans in 2019–20.