Author: Niamh Hickey

Artist. Teacher. Clare-based.

Next Meet-up : 29-9-16

All members are invited along to a meetup in my art room in Colaiste Muire on Thurs. Sept.29th, from 5-6pm, or thereabouts. This is a chance to chat and exchange ideas at the start of the new school year, before we all get bogged down in our busy art-room lives. I have made the suggestion that as a topic for this meetup, we all bring along an example or two of our L. Cert Craft/Design exams from June, and a Junior Cert Project or two, perhaps a higher achieving grade and a lower achieving grade. This could be a chance to look at and discuss the varying profiles of students we all see passing through our classrooms, discuss ideas, teaching strategies at exam level etc. I am always happy to benefit from other people’s best practice!

 

New logo

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I had great fun looking around for these words in different places to put this simple logo together. I hopped out of car at the side of a few roads to snap pictures of various versions of “Clare” – that was the most exciting one to find! Look out for it!

CAT network first meet-up

Our first meet-up took place on Tuesday 12th April 2016. I hosted in my art room in Colaiste Muire School in Ennis. We had 5 teachers representing 5 secondary schools in Clare attend. It was great to put faces to names and get to know each other a little. We had an agenda which we did try to stick to, but conversation often took over. Oh well, we are a networking group after all!

Agenda

  • Welcome and Introductions!
  • Sharing of personal info. of members
  • Ethos of the group / Charter
  • Platforms – Face to face meetups, What’s App group, Facebook page, Blog?
  • Meeting Schedule
  • Name Ideas
  • What do we want to get from this network?
  • AOB

https://thatnetworklondon.wordpress.com/

Feedback:

Some of the main points we discussed:

  • Charter: We agreed that the ethos of the group should be supportive rather than competitive – we would like this group to support and help each other, and be a forum for discussions, problem solving, sharing of good practice, commiserating and celebrating, rather than competition against each other.
  • We also agreed that this should be a non-profit, finance-free group, run on a voluntary basis. I am happy to provide the kit-kats for our tea break.
  • Communication: For the moment we will stick to emailing each other, and so with everyone’s permission I agreed to send out a list of emails as a way to communicate with each other.

A What’s App group was discussed: the main PRO’S being it is a quick easy way to communicate, CON’S being it requires everyone to have a mobile phone, and a large group might mean the volume of text messages coming in could be overwhelming and untimely. It’s a topic to think about for the future. Perhaps other sharing platforms that could be looked at include a website or blog or Google+ group that we would all have access to, and members could take it or leave it as much as they wanted, without it being intrusive.

  • Meeting Up: We agree that 2-3 face-to-face meetups a year would be doable, or as needed. Perhaps once a term, as schedules allow. I am happy to host in my art room for now, and maybe later on we might travel around to others people’s art rooms if anyone is so inclined! We would like to meet again after the summer, perhaps in Sept. before things get too crazy. We thought to start a bit earlier and run it from 5-6pm instead so people can get home.
  • Carmel mentioned that a previous group she was in used to meet up the day the art history L. Cert paper was sat, in June, to discuss and post-mortem. If people are interested maybe we could organise it and make a bit of a social event of it, go for a coffee or a glass of wine, and a chat?
  • Name: How does Clare Artist/Teacher Support-group sound? Or CATS for short? It’s open to suggestions!
  • What we want to get from this group: lots of discussion around this area. We are all happy to think about possible sharing of resources going forward, supporting newer teachers, sharing information on the new J. Cert and L. Cert changes coming through. We talked about art rooms and art room designs, using space, what kinds of desks and seating we all have, class sizes, numbers of students choosing art, new changes coming into L. Cert and J. Cert, short courses and the impact on jobs, resources in schools, materials and media, buying local, which suppliers we like and don’t like,    (Carmel recommends Cork Art Supplies, 26-28 Princes Street for bargains in paper amongst other things, 021-4277488, ask for Mags or Barry, and also Southern Mosaic here in Ennis for soft lino).
  • AOB: We talked about the possibility of an inter-school exhibition at some point in the future, showcasing a diverse section of our students, in all their glorious mixed-ability.
  • And finally; I recommended the website above for THAT network, a group of teachers from about 20 schools in the Tower Hamlets area of London, who formed a support network a few years ago and are doing great things, it’s an interesting read.

This was a positive and thought provoking start to our little group. I feel like I went away from this meet-up with many thoughts buzzing in my head, and full of impetus to move forward.

 

 

Welcome to the Clare Artist Teacher network and support group.

This is a group open to artist-teachers especially at secondary level in the Clare area, who would like to meet up with like-minded colleagues for discussion and support. Not everyone works as an artist all the time, or as a teacher all the time, but we all need to feel supported, and valued, in our work.

I set up this network to get to know my fellow artist-teachers in Co. Clare and to provide a place for dialogue, sharing, and supporting each other. I hope that many people will contribute to this space and add their voice to our little group. We have so much professional knowledge and personal experience to offer each other!