Ms Arlene Forster:

I will pick up again on the Senator's question about initial teacher education and Deputy Niamh Smyth's question about what could be done in the future to strengthen it. Building on the points mentioned, the arts are one of the seven areas that comprise the primary school curriculum. As such, they are a key part of initial teacher education. Notwithstanding the points made by Ms O'Donoghue about the fact that some come to teaching without formative artistic experiences, it is important to remember that initial teacher education is just the initial phase of a teacher's development of skill and professional knowledge. We have heard reference to the many opportunities to promote continuous professional development for teachers to build that experience and expertise.

There is another factor in considering the place of the arts in children's experiences in a primary school context on which we probably have not touched. It relates to the time given to the arts in the curriculum. In our opening statement Mr. Hammond referred to the ongoing review of the primary school curriculum. As part of review, we held a consultation process last year on the structure of the primary school curriculum and the time allocations within it. That generated an interesting discussion. As we all know, when one talks about the time given to a particular subject or area, it is about the values that underpin the curriculum. Many points were made in the consultation process about the allocation of time, specifically for those subjects or areas of the curriculum which received less time than others. There was a real feeling that in the redevelopment of the primary school curriculum it was important to hold onto the principle of providing a broad and balanced experience for children and that areas such as the arts were essential.

There is another piece of the redevelopment work which is particularly interesting in the context of this discussion. It relates to how we conceptualise an aspect of children's learning such as the arts. A proposal we put out last year for consultation on the primary school curriculum was designed to encourage people to think about the curriculum in a much more integrated way. We asked if we should continue with 11 subjects. A key finding of our consultation process was that there had been a broad welcome for the suggestion that we should think in a more integrated away about the totality of children's experiences in primary school. That connects with many of the points made. Every experience has or could have an artistic dimension. Some really interesting discussions will happen in the next year or two which will connect with many of the points made today about the critical centrality and importance of the arts experience for children throughout their primary school years.