Welcome
ChalleNGe is Nottingham's city-wide partnership of arts organisations, education settings, community groups and young people themselves. We collaborate on programmes that make a difference to children and young people's lives - focusing on access to arts, culture and creativity.
Families: Creative Activities
Families: Creative Activities
Families: Creative Activities
Join hundreds of other families who receive regular updates on free and accessible arts and creative opportunities in Nottingham by subscribing to our Parent and Carers Enewsletter.
Discover regular activities for your children to discover new interests and express themselves!
For older young people, check out Connecting Notts run by our Youth board, for information on groups, opportunities and people to help you create and collaborate in the city.
Latest newsletter:
Parent & Carers Newsletter December
Schools: Cultural Rucksack
Families: Creative Activities
Families: Creative Activities
Are you interested in bringing more creativity to your classroom, or organising visits to galleries, museums and theatres with your pupils? From teacher events and CPD to long-term partnerships, ChalleNGe helps you connect with arts organisations in Nottingham.
Get involved and ensure your school is engaging with all the Cultural Rucksack offers in Nottingham!
Download the 2025/2026 Cultural Rucksack Wallplanner
Latest Newsletters:
Latest News & Opportunities
Primaries - Watch the recording
Primary teachers - if you missed the January Culturemeet - never fear - you can watch the recording from Mon 26 January - click on the red play button!
Book your place on the next Culturemeet via eventbrite on Mon 27 April 2026.
Connect with arts providers in Nottingham to hear more about what they can offer your schools as part of your Cultural Rucksack schools commitment!
Nature Connections Community of Practice
Join the next community of practice meeting to develop collaboration around children's art, well-being and nature projects. Open to teachers, creative practitioners and organisations working in this sphere, to learn from each other and develop collaborative projects to enhance nature connections for children and young people.
Find out more on Nature Connections as part of ChalleNGe's Child Friendly Creative City programme.
Young Creative Awards 2026 - Entries open!
Young Creative Awards 2026 - Entries open!
Entries are open for Nottingham's annual Young Creative Awards. For 11- 25 year olds - the deadline is midnight on 16th March 2026. Categories are:
Child Friendly Nottingham SURVEY
Voice Boxes to amplify children's voices
Young Creative Awards 2026 - Entries open!
Deadline: Sat 31 Jan 2026
The Children and Young People’s Survey is open! Help your children and pupils to have their say. It is simple to take part:
- Access online and printable surveys here
Children & Young Peoples' Surveys
- Request printed booklets. Child Friendly Nottingham will deliver and collect surveys to schools: contact child.friendly@nottinghamcity.gov.uk
- Request a visit from the Child Friendly Nottingham team for an assembly, break‑time stand, or a classroom session tailored to your accessibility needs.
This year, we want to reach 5% of Nottingham’s young people, a milestone that can genuinely influence positive change across the city. If every school aims to complete the survey with five classrooms, it can happen!
Voice Boxes to amplify children's voices
Voice Boxes to amplify children's voices
Voice Boxes to amplify children's voices
As part of Child Friendly Nottingham's ambition to raise awareness of children's rights to be heard and listened to, we've been working with Nottingham-based creative producer Nicola Curzon to create imaginative and colourful Voice Boxes for schools across the city. Children have designed and selected their ideas and Nicola has made them a reality - providing the school with a wooden mascot that perfectly matches the children's drawing, Schools have then decorated their creature and are launching their Voice boxes this term as part of their wider commitments to Pupil Voice in school.
NEWS FLASH - schools can still participate in the Voice Box project and have their own wooden boxes made. This project is fully funded by Child Friendly Nottingham - so don't delay - get in touch if you would like a voice box for your school! Email cathy.mahmood@ntu.ac.uk
Year of Reading: Free Webinar Programme
Voice Boxes to amplify children's voices
Voice Boxes to amplify children's voices
These monthly sessions (27 Jan - 15 Dec 2026) hosted by the Centre for Research in Language, Education and Developmental Inequalities at Nottingham Trent University are designed to provide practical, research-informed strategies to support reading, literacy, and wellbeing. Suitable for Primary and Secondary colleagues, each seminar is 3.30-4.30pm and includes time for discussion, reflection, and ideas to take straight back to your classroom.
Sign up for the sessions most relevant to your interests/setting choosing from a range of topics that explore the latest research and practical approaches to reading, literacy, and learning.
Support for Teachers:
Culturemeets online
Creative Practitioners
Culturemeets online
We bring teachers and arts professionals together for termly online network meetings called CultureMeets. We begin with 5min presentations from arts organisations about their upcoming exhibitions, workshops and resources before a themed discussion.
See all past Culturemeets here. Contact hello@challengenottingham.co.uk if you are a teacher and want to book a 1:1 conversation.
CPD/ Events
Creative Practitioners
Culturemeets online
There are some fabulous creative CPD opportunities all year round. Most of free and some will even cover staff costs so you can come out of the classroom and nurture your own creativity and go back to school feeling nurtured and inspired!
We plan CPD based on teacher feedback, so get in touch to help us shape additional CPD opportunities for the coming year.
Creative Practitioners
Creative Practitioners
Creative Practitioners
Nottingham's Creativity Collaboratives programme involved 12 schools exploring and embedding approaches around 'Teaching for Creativity' over 3 years. Watch: 'This Much We Know' to see some of the creative practitioners involved.
Find out more about the Creative Practitioners we worked with and read some of the case studies.
City-wide collaborative projects
Art of Belonging
Child Friendly Nottingham
Child Friendly Nottingham
Art of Belonging is a city-wide programme that seeks to welcome refugees and asylum seekers in Nottingham. The Art of Belonging Pledge has now been signed by 14 arts organisations and we have a growing network of creative practitioners who are being supported to facilitate sessions with new arrivals. From partnership projects with NEST (the Nottingham Education Sanctuary team) and arts venues, to the Refugee Roots regular creative programme and collaborations with Nottingham Playhouse, NAE and more - there are many ways you can support this work and get involved.
Child Friendly Nottingham
Child Friendly Nottingham
Child Friendly Nottingham
Child Friendly Nottingham is a city-wide partnership programme to put children's rights into practice. Lots of organisations are supporting children and young people to have a meaningful say in local decisions, services and spaces. Training and resources from UNICEF are available for teams and organisations to get involved.
Over 9000 children and young people collaborated to choose 3 'badges' (areas to focus on) which are: Safe and Secure; Education & Learning and Healthy. 'Equal and included is the golden thread, linking all our work together.
RSE Day
Child Friendly Nottingham
Every year, we work in partnership with Catherine Kirk from Nottingham City Council on developing a collaborative schools project and resources to celebrate Relationship & Sex Education (RSE) Day.
For 2025, the theme was 'Communicate' focusing on healthy, positive communication in relationships. We commissioned artist Millie Yarwood to gather children and young people’s views and create a mural in the Arboretum. Millie also run a creative CPD session for teachers. Find out about the work of the Achieve Well Team and get involved!
Connecting Notts
Connecting Notts is our Youth Board that meets monthly to bring together representatives from ChalleNGe arts and community partners (16-26 year olds) and develop a Young Creatives Network, in partnership with Young Creatives Nottingham.
Check out the Connecting Notts website to Find Groups
Bulwell Arts Festival
Bulwell Arts Festival
We believe that art opportunities should be on every child's doorstep, in neighbourhoods, schools and parks - as well as within the fabulous arts venues of our city.
We work in close partnership with Bulwell Arts Festival (hosted by One Vision Partnership), Bilborough Arts Festival and the new Clifton Arts Festival group to support local creative activities in community centres, schools and libraries in these local neighbourhoods. Get in touch if you'd like to get involved.
Celebrating Languages
Bulwell Arts Festival
We're delighted to be working in partnership with schools, communities, arts partners and our two Universities to celebrate our diverse languages and dialects in Nottingham.
Thanks to funding from NTU, 8 partnership projects have been supported to explore new partnerships between arts organisations, schools and community groups to highlight and celebrate Languages within their work.
We are also excited to be the Community partner for a Co(l)laboratory and welcome Jack Benjamin as our PhD researcher.
