My Primary School is at the Gallery

A group of school children in uniform draw on clipboards in a grand gallery filled with paintings.
Photo, Jack Caffrey, The Pimlico Project.

Our current residency schools for 2025/2026 are Our Lady of Lourdes National School, Inchicore and St. Audeon’s National School, Dublin 8. For the duration of their residencies, each class are based in the Millennium Wing Education Studio and will use the whole Gallery as their classroom to explore subjects across the curriculum including art, Irish, English, maths and history.

Introduction

My Primary School is at the Gallery is a residency project designed to make meaningful, long-lasting connections between local primary schools and their National Gallery. Kindly supported by SMBC Aviation Capital, the initiative aims to work collaboratively, flexibly and sensitively to the needs of DEIS schools, often managing substantial educational barriers, to actively broaden access to the arts.

Delivered twice per year, students and their teacher join us for a co-developed residency that places the class at the heart of the Gallery. Students attend their full school day at the Gallery with all subjects being taught through art and creativity. The design of the residency programme is tailored in response to the specific needs of the participating school group along with curated activities for the wider school community. The residency aims to complement the national curriculum and integrate with ongoing classroom based learning.

At the end of the residency, the children are encouraged to share their learning often by, but not limited to, creating a public display. The wider school, family and friends are also welcomed to the Gallery to celebrate with the class, an important aspect of the programme.

About the project

The residency programme is adapted from international model My Primary School is at the Museum which was originally conceived by architect Wendy James, and developed in collaboration with the Department of Education & Professional Studies and the Cultural Institute at King’s College London. The project was developed against a backdrop of threatened museum services, a shortage of school places, and ever-growing evidence to support the range of benefits of learning in cultural environments and through collections. It tested the benefits of co-locating primary and preschool classes for extended periods of time within a museum. The initial project consisted of a number of pilot residencies, and the detailed research report identified benefits including:

  • For children: increased confidence and improved social and communication skills; greater engagement with and sense of ‘ownership’ of local cultural spaces and places.
  • For museums: a deeper understanding of younger audiences, enabling the development of more relevant, engaging programmes; an extended use of their spaces and collections.
  • For schools and teachers: examples of creative ways in which to deliver the curriculum and confidence using out-of-classroom spaces.

My Primary School is at the Gallery is currently open to local DEIS schools through an invitation system.

Residency

Our current residency school is Our Lady of Lourdes National School, Inchicore.

Watch

City Quay National School were resident in the Gallery from February to April 2025. Watch two pupils discuss their experiences below!

Contact Us

If you would like to learn more about our residency programme, please contact Rachel Burke, Schools Officer: [email protected].

My Primary School is at the Gallery, supported by SMBC Aviation Capital, Schools Partner.

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