Welcome to ChalleNGe Nottingham
ChalleNGe is a city-wide partnership of arts organisations, schools and young people. We collaborate to engage more children and young people in shaping arts, cultural and creative opportunities in schools and communities.
Join us in championing creativity for all children and young people in Nottingham.
Families - creative activities
Families - creative activities
Families - creative activities
Discover organisations and groups that offer creative activities for children and young people in the city. Why not try something new? There are arts groups, dance classes, youth theatre and music opportunities all year around - to name but a few!
Read the May Half-term Parent and Carers Newsletter to see a host of creative activities for children, young people and families!
Schools: Cultural Rucksack
Families - creative activities
Families - creative activities
Interested in bringing more creativity to your classroom, or wanting to develop new opportunities for your pupils? From teacher events and CPD to long-term partnerships, ChalleNGe brings you regular updates and boosts your creative connections. 2024/25 Wallplanner
Round-up of arts opportunities & network events: May 2025 Primary teachers newsletter and Secondary teachers newsletter.
Latest News & Opportunities
Teacher CPD: FOREST Exhibition
Teacher CPD: Your Ears Later Will Know to Listen
Teacher CPD: Your Ears Later Will Know to Listen
Fri 23 May 2025 6-8pm Nottingham Castle
All educators welcome
Come along to meet and talk to learning staff about creative sessions and class visits that can accompany the new exhibition: Forest.
The event is free with a musical performance by Burd Ellen too.
FOREST is an exhibition that delves into the myth and magic of arboreal art. It will use this theme to help staff shape artistic thought and creative practices for children and young people. It will include the iconic large-scale painting of the Major Oak (1882) by Nottingham-born artist Andrew MacCallum (1821-1902). Use this exhibition as a stimulus to explore relationships with woodland, nature, climate change and stories.
Book a place on the teacher session https://bit.ly/4mesft6
Teacher CPD: Your Ears Later Will Know to Listen
Teacher CPD: Your Ears Later Will Know to Listen
Teacher CPD: Your Ears Later Will Know to Listen
Thurs 5 June 2025: Nottingham Contemporary 4.30-6pm
All educators welcome
Later Your Ears Will Know to Listen explores how sound moves through cultures, histories and futures. There are opportunities for curriculum links to history, geography, science and DT, allowing teachers and pupils to connect through a range of themes.
Join an artmaking and practice-sharing educator session and experiment with approaches to create environments for discussion and reflective thinking. Preview resources developed for schools.
Exhibition runs until Sun 7 Sept. 2025. Find out more
Book a place at the Free Teacher CPD Session.
INSET & Cultural Marketplace event
Teacher CPD: Your Ears Later Will Know to Listen
INSET & Cultural Marketplace event
Weds 16 July; 1-5.30pm. Nottingham Contemporary
This afternoon will inspire and equip teachers with the latest Cultural Rucksack schools offers. Come and meet Arts providers across Nottingham's vibrant cultural education sector. Take part in creative taster workshops, and hear from galleries, theatres and museums about their upcoming programmes.
A must-attend event for all ArtsMark and Cultural Rucksack schools - and anyone wanting to build a cultural entitlement for their pupils. FREE for schools thanks to Arts Council support for ChalleNGe, Nottingham's Cultural Education Partnership.
Please register your attendance, up to 3 people per school.
For Teachers:
Culturemeets online
A-Z Directory for schools
A-Z Directory for schools
We bring teachers and arts professionals together for a termly online network 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.
Watch the January culturemeets
and book to join us for the next ones!
Primary Thurs 24 April, 4-5pm
Secondary Tues 24 June, 4-5pm
A-Z Directory for schools
A-Z Directory for schools
A-Z Directory for schools
Nottingham's Cultural Rucksack encourages the development of high quality partnerships between arts, cultural and heritage providers and schools - embedding a range of rich and diverse experiences to bring your curriculum to life.
Nottingham's schools are signing up to become 'Cultural Rucksack schools' - supporting their pupils to feel connected and valued by their city. Find out more about becoming a CR school here.
Creativity Collaboratives
A-Z Directory for schools
Creativity Collaboratives
Nottingham's Creativity Collaboratives programme has involved 12 schools exploring and embedding approaches around 'Teaching for Creativity' over 3 years. Watch our Yr 3 FILM
Find out more about the Creative Practitioners and read our latest case studies.
See the Creativity Exchange website and Leading for Creative Thinking website for inspiration, links and resources.
City-wide collaborative projects
Art of Belonging
Child Friendly Nottingham
Celebrating Languages
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.
Celebrating Languages
Child Friendly Nottingham
Celebrating Languages
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.
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 is 'Communicate' focusing on healthy, positive communication in relationships. Together we have commissioned artist Milly Yarwood to take children and young people’s views and create a mural in the Arboretum. She will also run a workshop for schools covering a range of techniques so they can create an in-house RSE Day mural.
Find out about the work of the Achieve Well Team and get involved.
Connecting Notts, Youth Voices
Connecting Notts is a Young Creatives Network - that brings together 16-15 year olds from ChalleNGe arts and community Partners to regularly meet, influence and plan events for young people.
Facilitated by ChalleNGe and Upstart Projects (who also run Voice Mag) members of Connecting Notts meet monthly (usually Mondays from 5-7pm) and plan 4 events a year for young people across the city, to better connect, network and shape arts opportunities for young people.
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. So we have been delighted to work in close partnership with Bulwell Arts Festival (hosted by One Vision Partnership) and Bilborough Arts Festival over the years - supporting local creative activities in community centres, schools and libraries in the run up to their annual Art festivals. Huge congratulations to Nicola Curzon and the OVP team on a fabulous Bulwell Arts Festival 2024. We love working with you!
