Are you ready to change lives and fight for the creative futures of all children and young people?

Anyone is welcome to sign up to support the campaign with a free fundraising kit including posters, stickers and ideas for celebrating on the day, from cake baking to fancy dress, available on The Mighty Creatives’ website

The money raised will help the Mighty Creatives champion creativity both in and outside the classroom, to make sure we’ll have creative heroes to celebrate in the future.

Nick Owen, CEO at The Mighty Creatives explains:

"Too often, arts and cultural education, is viewed as ‘nice to have’ and not essential for the education of children and young people. We are leading the fight to make the case that cultural education offers so much more to the life chances of young people.

On Creative Hero Day on 9 November, we want everyone to join us in making lots of noise about how our creative heroes have inspired us, whether your creative hero is a famous musician, an artist, a teacher, a community leader, a young person, a child, anyone that’s made a difference to your life through their creativity.

Through that, we’re hoping to raise vital funds for giving children and young people throughout the East Midlands as many opportunities as possible to be creative."

Schools joining the campaign can also raise funds for their own creative activities at the same time, with donations shared between each participating school and The Mighty Creatives.

Northbridge Academy Primary School in Worksop has already signed up. Dayle Green, Chair of Governors at the school explained why:

"We’re currently applying to be an Artsmark school in recognition of our investment in creative and cultural education as an essential part of daily life here at the school. We want to support the campaign so that we can promote the value of creativity to our parents and local community. We believe all children should have access to creativity and a rich cultural education despite their social background. Creative Hero Day is a fun and engaging way to promote the value of arts and inspire young creatives."

Creativity under threat

Creativity in the classroom is under threat with a major new research report commissioned by Arts Council England, carried out by the RSC, Tate and Nottingham School of Education, predicting ‘a perfect storm’ for creative education. Capturing the voices of 6,000 children, young people and teachers, the report (available in full here) highlights the importance of school to young people’s arts engagement, with more than a third of students saying school is their only opportunity to engage in arts activities.

Emily Bowman, Deputy CEO of The Mighty Creatives explained:

"Department for Education figures published in June 2018 show that between 2010 and 2017 the number of hours the arts were taught in England’s secondary schools fell by 21% and the number of arts teachers fell by 20%.

In 2015 the ‘creative industries’ grew by 10% – five times faster than the UK economy as a whole, since then it has continued to grow – and now contributes almost £92bn to the UK economy according to the figures published by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

By pushing arts from the curriculum, we are not equipping our young people with the skills needed to contribute to this ever growing and evolving marketplace and are in danger of leaving a whole generation behind."

The Harley Gallery and Foundation has also signed up to support the campaign. Director Lisa Gee concludes:

"At The Harley Foundation, we create spaces where the imagination can flourish and we’ve seen how making and creating art helps people develop core skills which can be used throughout their lives. In the Harley Studios we have a community of over 30 practising artists and we hope that working on the Creative Hero Campaign with The Mighty Creatives will ensure that local children can become the creatives of the future."

To find out more and sign up for your free fundraising kit please visit here or email becky@themightycreatives.com