The Ark, A Cultural Centre for Children and the Irish Museum of Modern
Art have undertaken an audience development research project focusing on
the relationship between our venues and our primary school audience. The
project investigated the expectations, needs and issues facing principals
and teachers in primary schools and how these can reflect in their capacity
to access cultural venues. As the present challenging economic climate
is exerting increasing pressure on school resources, this project set out
to explore how we, as cultural venues, can better prepare for the
possible negative impact of the current economic crisis on primary schools’ engagement
with the arts.
Under the guidance of a project team consisting of representatives from each
cultural venue, the project conducted a forum and two Focus Group meetings involving
a total of sixteen practising principals and primary school teachers during April
and May 2010. The sixteen schools represented were mostly from the Dublin
area with an even split between city centre based schools and those in the outer
reaches of the county. They included two girls’ schools, one special
needs school, alongside two rural schools based in County Meath and County Wicklow. More
than half of the primary schools involved in the project are designated as disadvantaged
under the The Department of Education and Skills Delivering Equality of Opportunity
in Schools (DEIS) plan to address educational disadvantage throughout the public
school system.
The different groups were selected based on their present or past relationships
with both venues and all identifying information about the participants has been
removed from this report to preserve their anonymity. The Teachers’ Forum
group was made up of a group of principals and teachers whose schools have an
established relationship with one or both venues, regularly accessing events
and utilising resources. This meeting was followed by a Focus Group with
teachers who have lapsed in their attendance to events at one or both venues. The
final Focus Group met with teachers from schools that have never visited The
Ark or IMMA or have not done so for a period of at least seven years.
Alongside the documentation of the findings from these meetings the project also
sought to gain insight into the different experiences of Irish primary teachers
through a series of one on one interviews with arts and education specialists. The
project team met with representatives from the Primary Professional Development
Service (PPDS), Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) as well as a lecturer
from Froebel College of Education and an artist and facilitator with extensive
experience of working with school groups.
We hope that the results of this audience development project can help feed into
the future planning of cultural events for primary schools in both The Ark and
IMMA and will offer transferable learning to other arts organisations across
the country.
The Ark and IMMA have produced this audience development research project as
part of Arts Audiences “Build Your Audience” pilot scheme. Arts Audiences
is a partnership initiative of the Arts Council and Temple Bar Cultural Trust.
Please click
here to view the full report in PDF format.
