Féilte Bursary Application Guidelines

1. Introduction to the collaborative professional learning bursary

This bursary serves two key purposes:

1. Building Collaborative Professional Communities: The bursary is designed to support the creation and sustainability of professional learning communities.
2. Promoting the Teaching Profession: Each bursary recipient will be required to create a digital asset that demonstrates their professional learning activities and the impact on teachers. This will be used to promote the teaching profession more broadly.

2. Eligible activities

Schools may use this bursary to collaborate with other schools to organise, and host professional learning activities. The chosen activities must focus on teacher professional learning, rather than outcomes for pupils or students.

The activities must align with one or more of the following areas:

Forming professional learning communities: Collaborate with other schools to form professional learning communities around shared educational interests.

Hosting workshops/events: Bring teachers together from different schools to share best practices and learn from each other (for example, a shared learning day).

Inviting speakers: Arrange for a speaker to deliver an information session or workshop to teachers.

Joint professional development events/programmes: Collaborate with other schools to organise a professional development event or programme on topics relevant to the schools, for example, universal design for learning, technology in education, building leadership capacity, restorative practice, reflective practice, building relationships and working with parents, or action research on a chosen topic.

Organising a lesson study: Partner with other schools to conduct a lesson study, where teachers collaboratively plan, observe, and analyse teaching and learning.

3. Application themes

Your application must be based on at least one of the following themes:

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  Inclusive practice

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  Teaching of Gaeilge/Teaching through Gaeilge

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  Leadership and professional relationships

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  Wellbeing

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  Alignment with a named Teaching Council policy or Department of Education and Youth policy or strategy, for example, Céim, Cosán, Droichead, SSE (Looking at our Schools).

4. Funding details

The bursary offers two bands of funding, depending on the number of schools involved in the collaboration, as outlined below:

• Band 1: €2,000 – Professional learning activities involving two schools, or more
• Band 2: €5,000 for professional learning activities involving three schools, or more

The full bursary payment will be made to the lead school/ETB in the collaboration, who will manage the funds among the participating schools as appropriate.

5. Eligibility criteria

Applications will be screened to determine their eligibility based on the following criteria. If an application does not meet all the criteria below, it may be deemed ineligible.

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  Collaboration: Applications must show evidence of collaboration with at least one other recognised school or college of further education, with a roll number.  To administer the bursary, we will need the details of the lead school, and each collaborating school.  Schools may be named as collaborating schools on multiple applications.

  Although not a requirement, applicants are encouraged to consider collaborating with your local education support centre, higher education institution or centre of education such as a Youthreach setting.

  Although not a requirement, applicants are encouraged to consider collaborating with another sector. For example, a primary school may link with a post-primary school, or a post-primary school may link with a college of further education.

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  Applicant: The applicant must be a registered teacher applying on behalf of the lead school. If you are not working in a school (for example, due to secondment, retiring etc.) you must partner with a lead school in order to participate in the bursary scheme.

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  Schools: Schools involved in an application must be recognised by the Department of Education and Youth and have a roll number in the Republic of Ireland, or must be a college of further education with a roll number in the Republic of Ireland.

  A school may only act as a lead applicant on one application. Should a lead school submit more than one application, only the first valid application received will be considered.

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  Details of the lead school and collaborating school(s): To administer the bursary, we will need the details of the lead school, and each collaborating school.

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  Budget: A costed, itemised breakdown of how the bursary will be spent must be included on the application form.

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  Consent from collaborating schools: Consent for the application must be sought from the Principal, Deputy Principal or equivalent of all collaborating schools before the application is submitted. Please note, a final internal check will be conducted by Teaching Council staff to confirm the awareness and support of school leadership and/or collaborating schools before the bursary is awarded.

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  Description of professional learning activities: A detailed description of the proposed activities that align with the eligible activities and themes listed in the guidelines.

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  Impact: Clear aims and objectives regarding the impact of the proposed activities on the professional learning of staff and schools involved.

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  Digital asset: Agreement to submit a digital asset as outlined in your application.

6. Digital asset requirement

To promote teaching as a profession, each bursary recipient must create a digital asset demonstrating their activity and the impact on teachers’ professional learning. These digital assets can take the form of:

• a number of photographs/videos showcasing the professional learning activities in action,
• a poster,
• a digital artefact (for example, a T-REX byte or a Padlet),
• a video reflection (for example, an audio or video reflection on how the teachers involved benefited from the bursary).

These digital assets must be shared with us by 6pm on Friday, 15 May 2026.

They will be collated, developed, and used to promote the teaching profession.

The digital assets may be placed on our website and social media channel in order to promote professional collaboration and to showcase the teaching profession more broadly.

Names of those captured in the digital asset should not be submitted. No images of minors or vulnerable adults should be submitted.

It is the responsibility of each school to ensure that all individuals captured are made aware of the use of the footage so that they can decide not to participate if they wish.

7. Additional requirements

In addition to a digital asset, bursary recipients must submit the following before 6pm on Friday 15 May 2026:

• a short written reflection on your experience and the impact of the professional learning activities,
• a feedback survey which will be issued to all successful bursary recipients,
• a budget overview outlining how the bursary was spent.

8. Scoring rubric

Applications will be scored against the following criteria once they have passed an eligibility check:

*Cross-sectoral collaboration can be defined as follows:

• a lead primary school working with a post-primary school, a special school or a College of Further Education
• a lead post-primary school working with a primary school, a special school or a College of Further Education
• a lead special school working with a primary school, a post-primary school, or a College of Further Education
• a lead College of Further Education working with a primary school, a post-primary school or a special school

9. Evaluation process

Applications will be evaluated as follows:

Feedback: Ineligible applicants will be provided with the reasons why their application was ineligible.  Unsuccessful applicants may seek feedback on their application. Unsuccessful applicants must email feilte@teachingcouncil.ie and request feedback within 21 days of receiving the outcome.

10. Timeline

11. Payment

The bursary will be paid into the bank account of the lead school/Education & Training Board (ETB) in Mid-January 2026.

It is the responsibility of the lead school/ETB to manage the bursary payment in accordance with the application submitted, and amongst the collaborating schools, as appropriate.

We will be in contact in Mid-January 2026 to arrange payment.

12. Appeals process

If you wish to appeal the decision, you must submit a formal written appeal to the Director of the Teaching Council within 7 days of receiving the outcome. Please send the appeal to feilte@teachingcouncil.ie

The appeal must clearly outline the grounds for appeal, which should be based on procedural errors or perceived inconsistencies in the assessment process.

13. How to Apply

Submit an application here.

15. Data Protection

The Teaching Council is the Data Controller. The data collected in the application process for example, names and contact details of school Principals or equivalent are used to administer the bursary applications. Digital assets submitted as part of the bursary scheme are used to promote teaching as a profession.

Our lawful basis for processing this data is our legitimate interest to promote teaching as a profession in accordance with our obligations under the Teaching Council Act 2001, as amended.

As detailed above, the digital assets will be shared on the Teaching Council website and social media accounts as well as distributed to all registered teachers. Digital assets will be retained for 36 months for the purposes of effectiveness reviews and then securely destroyed.

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018) individuals have a number of rights with regard to their personal data. They have the right to request from us:

• access to their personal data,
• rectification of their personal data where it is incorrect,
• erasure of their personal data in certain circumstances,
• the right to restrict processing or object to processing in certain circumstances.

You can contact our DPO at dpo@teachingcouncil.ie

You have the right to lodge a complaint to the Data Protection Commission if you believe that we have not complied with the requirements of the GDPR or DPA 2018 with regard to your personal data.

16. Contact Information

For any questions or additional information, please contact us at feilte@teachingcouncil.ie