For the last two years, our Senior Autism Class participated in the Creative Cluster Initiative with four other Autism Classes in Sligo – Ransboro NS, St Cecilia’s School, Summerhill College and St Mary’s College Ballysdare. This is an initiative of the Department of Education led by and in partnership with Sligo Education Centre and funded through the Schools Excellence Fund - Creative Clusters Initiative.
Creative Clusters is an important part of the Creative Youth Plan 2023-2027. It's all about giving young people chances to learn and grow in skills, like working together, thinking deeply, solving problems, and coming up with new ideas. We want children to learn these skills by being creative and by having access to creative learning in different places, like schools and other places where they can learn and play.
Our project for the two years was called ‘Making SENSE of the world’ and our aim was to provide the students with a buffet of life and sensory experiences in order to help them recognise their own preferences and support them in making choices. To celebrate the completion of this project, we held an interactive exhibition called ‘Woodland Wonders’ on the grounds of St Cecilia’s School, to showcase student’s creative experiences for their families.
Active research has been carried out over the two years, in which we provided the children with a broad range of experiences across all curricular areas. We visited Sligo Woodland School, Kids Connect, The Creator Van, Maia Purposeful Play and Lough Key Forest Park. We also got funding through the BLAST Arts in Education Residency Programme 2023/2024. This gave our class the opportunity to work with artist Anna Leask. We practiced cyanotype photography and showcased this work at our ‘Woodland Wonders’ exhibition too.
After our ‘Woodland Wonders’ exhibition for our families, we decided to showcase our work one more time in the school hall. Thank you to all the staff, pupils and family members who came along and supported us.
We are very grateful to have had these wonderful opportunities and to have met so many amazing people along the way.
