Grants database

Stiltskin Creative Arts and Theatre, is leading Tiny Voices, Giant Ideas, a collaborative project with creative partners Exim Dance and Above Bounds Theatre. The initiative explores imaginative, child-driven, play-based practices co-created by artists and Early Years practitioners. The work aims to provide rich, arts-based experiences for three and four-year-olds, supporting self-expression, confidence, resilience, and mental health. The project aims to gain insights into embedding an artist as a member of the academic team in three Plymouth early years settings.

Music in the Round is a national promoter of chamber music, with a year-round programme of events for people of all ages. This grant supports the WeCompose project, enabling pupils at Key Stage 3 and 4 to access to the music curriculum and make progress in their learning by developing composition skills, creativity, and connections to live music. The project will also provide professional development support to music teachers to strengthen their practice.

Fresh Arts provide arts education for children of all ages. They are committed to widening participation in the arts. The Bounce Drama Project boosts the knowledge and skills relating to mental health and well being of children in Years 3 and 4, through drama-based practice. In the second phase of development, Fresh Arts will be developing the model, through co-construction with a group of London primary schools, to support children in all primary school year groups.

Chuckle Productions use Arts-based learning approaches to encourage a child’s natural desire to be creative and curious. This grant will enable Chuckle Productions to support young children in Staffordshire schools and nurseries to develop key skills by participating in music, movement and visual arts-based activities. They will also work in partnership with teachers, teaching assistants and nursery staff to use an arts-based approach to support core areas of child development, ensuring that children are ready to start school.

Bruiser Theatre Company is a physical theatre company that nurtures new professionals and reaches out to communities in Northern Ireland. This grant supports their Vital Connect project to extend and develop a blended approach to supporting drama education, working with 12 secondary schools. Bruiser Theatre Company will deliver a consistent free provision of workshops, continuing professional development and mentorship to enable students and teachers to develop skills, knowledge and confidence.

ARCADE supports creativity in all its forms, working with local communities and supporting local artists to ensure the Scarborough region has a thriving creative scene. This grant supports ARCADE to develop a locally-rooted partnership in Scarborough, encompassing artists and museum educators from ARCADE, Scarborough Museums and Galleries, Flash Company Arts and KIT Theatre. Using an arts-based approach drawing on immersive drama and storytelling, the partnership would work with a small group of Scarborough primary schools, a PRU and an SEND specialist school, to support learning across the curriculum.

Talawa is a Black British theatre company that champions Black excellence in theatre. This grant will support Talawa’s new Early Years programme addressing a significant gap in provisions for quality, accessible and affordable theatre for babies aged 6–18 months. Funding will support staffing, artist/​facilitator fees, early years training for artists, alongside the development of, and subsequent tour, of a new co-created show for babies, as part of a wider early years program. This programme will be delivered in partnership with children’s theatre experts Unicorn Theatre.

Studio Voltaire (SV) is a contemporary arts organisation based in Clapham. This grant will provide support for its four-year civic programming, including the development of a Programme Advisory Group of local community members to critically engage and reflect on SV’s work, and a national programme of research and creative participation with, by and for young trans people.

Peak Cymru collaborates with young people, artists and intergenerational communities to celebrate the unique qualities and ecologies of Southeast Wales. This grant funds core costs to enable rurally based young people aged 16 to 30 years to shape Peak Cymru’s programme, to embed their voice within the organisation and strengthen a co-leadership model.

Ort Gallery is an artist-led exhibition space in Birmingham with the social mission to facilitate dialogue in the community. With this grant, the gallery will continue to test and develop their ​‘Warmth’ way of working, centring care and embedding equity across all their work; this will involve internal development of governance and policies, and community-led programming focusing on supporting under-served Muslim creatives and audiences.

Museum of Colour is a heritage and creativity social enterprise. This grant contributes core funds for the development of a digital museum to explore the contribution made by people of colour to the nation’s film, television and art, through a series of digital collections and responses. Museum of Colour wishes to shift the narrative of the UK’s arts and national history by recognising and celebrating the lives of past generations of artists of colour. In addition, they will support others to reframe and retell their stories to create a fuller richer history without omissions and obsfucations.

Impact Dance (ID) is a Black-led art-for-social-change organisation specialising in hip-hop theatre, street dance and youth development. This grant will support Impact Dance’s work addressing the inequality of opportunity to access and participate in dance by those facing long-term structural and systemic inequalities: an accessible CPD programme for dance teachers from non-traditional backgrounds, pastoral care provision for members, and residential and respite opportunities for young people in the Academy.