The Spark Arts for Children

Who we are

The Spark Arts for Children is a busy children's art organisation based in the LCB Depot (Leicester City Council managed workspace for creative industries), in the heart of the city of Leicester's cultural quarter.

Over the last few years we have come a long way, from an organisation with an annual children's arts festival to a fully-fledged, strategically positioned children's arts organisation with a year-round multi-art form programme.

The Spark gives children opportunities to immerse themselves in the arts. We offer children spaces to discover their own skills, passions and potential, as audience, participants and creators of their own work.

We do this through commissioning and producing high quality, diverse and innovative programmes; organising a bold and imaginative children's arts festival and by championing cultural education activity locally to ensure that children in Leicester/shire thrive through rich and adventurous experiences, no matter where they start in life.

Our culture and values

Working to inspire children to thrive, we explore the difference culture makes through involvement in the arts, creative interactions and cultural connections, and enabling children’s voices to be heard, their creativity to be supported and their cultural values to be understood.   

We do this by commissioning and co-creating high-quality, diverse and innovative arts programmes in cultural venues and community spaces outside, indoors and online. Each year we produce an imaginative and playful children’s arts festival – a week-long festival of creative discovery about the world in which we live – that excites audiences and inspires participants. And we support and promote the arts and artists in libraries, and creativity and culture in schools, so that children’s creative potential is supported every day. We work nationally to make a difference locally.  

Our goal is to change as our local communities change, and to continue to be relevant to children. That is why we invest in playing our part in growing a cultural and creative industry that reflects the passion, creativity and diversity of our society.

Our values underpin everything we do. Our published values are as follows. 

• A fair and safe environment where everyone is valued 
• The space for big ideas to grow 
• We are curious and love learning 
• Empowering children and young people to be amazing 

Equality, diversity and inclusion policy

We value people’s experiences and believe that working with people from different backgrounds and with different experiences strengthens and develops the work that we do.  We also value the lived experience of the people that work for us and recognise the contribution this makes to the organisation’s understanding of the climate we operate in and the communities we engage in our work.

We welcome and encourage applications from people who are underrepresented in the creative and cultural industries.

We particularly encourage people to apply from Asian, Black or ethnically diverse backgrounds, who are LGBTQIA+, who define as D/deaf, disabled or neurodivergent and/or from low socio-economic backgrounds.