Have a Go is designed to provide learners aged 3 – 16 with opportunities to have a go at a one-off hands-on activity or workshop to support schools with the delivery of the Expressive Arts Area of Learning and Experience. The fund covers the five disciplines of the Expressive Arts Area of Learning and Experience art, dance, drama, film and digital media and music.
The activity can be delivered by either an arts organisation or a creative practitioner and can take place either at school or at suitable location within Wales. The activity can be during school hours or as an extra-curricular activity. It can be a single session or take place across several days.
The fund offers grants of up to £1,500 and applications can be made by state-maintained schools, pupil referral units and/or arts and cultural organisations in Wales.
Have a Go supports the delivery of the Programme for Government 2021-26 and the National Plan for Music Education.
Who can apply?
Have a Go is available to support:
- All state-maintained schools in Wales for pupils aged 3 – 16years.
- Pupil referral units in Wales for pupils aged 3 – 16 years.
We are unable to support post 16 education, including FE Colleges and Sixth Form.
Have a Go applications can be submitted by:
- A state-maintained school.
- A pupil referral unit.
- An arts/cultural organisation based in Wales.
Time-Limited Priorities
Creative Learning Cymru’s flagship Experience the Arts programme has been awarded an additional £150,000 in funding from the Welsh Government, enabling it to expand its reach and enhance access to arts and cultural opportunities for children and young people across Wales.
This funding, which is available until March 2026, supports the delivery of the Welsh Government’s Priorities for Culture, specifically targeting learners from disadvantaged communities and those with Additional Learning Needs (ALN). The funding will focus on breaking down barriers for children and young people when accessing culture and the arts.
Accessible, Inclusive, Diverse
Creative Learning Cymru will introduce bespoke funding rounds designed to:
- Support schools in Local Authorities with historically lower levels of arts participation, prioritising the following areas:
- Blaenau Gwent
- Conwy
- Denbighshire
- Flintshire
- Newport
- Pembrokeshire
- Rhondda Cynon Taf
- Torfaen
- Support schools from any Local Authority with a high percentage of learners experiencing specific barriers to participation, such as Additional Learning Needs (ALN), neurodivergent learners, young carers, or children in care.
Additionally, the fund will prioritise new schools from any Local Authority that have not previously received funding from Go and See or Have a Go.
These strategic enhancements align with the Welsh Government’s Priorities for Culture funding in 2025-2026, delivering against ambitions one and four in the Priorities for Culture, specifically:
- Culture that is accessible, inclusive, and diverse.
- Culture that reflects the needs and aspirations of children and young people and strengthens connections between generations.
All applications applying within the time-limited priority funding must continue to meet the general criteria outlined in the Go and See or Have a Go guidelines, while also demonstrating how they address the specific time-limited priorities detailed above.
While we encourage applications that address these time-limited priorities, we remain open to all schools and Arts Partners applying to either the Go and See or Have a Go funding streams within the Experience the Arts programme, regardless of whether they meet one of the priorities. Submissions outside the time-limited priorities will continue to be assessed fairly based on the strength of their case against the fund guidelines and will be supported through existing Welsh Government investment, match-funded by National Lottery funding distributed by the Arts Council of Wales until March 2028.
Our commitment to a fair distribution of funding
There are times when we receive more applications than we can fund. In these circumstances, we must make difficult decisions on which applications to prioritise. We will always look at the case that an individual school makes for funding, but, in a competitive funding round, we will also take into consideration additional information. In these instances, we will take into consideration:
- Schools that have not benefited from Creative Learning Cymru funding previously.
- The % of eFSM (eligible for free school meals) learners at the school.
- The % number of learners at the school that have already benefited from our funding.
- The language of the activity to enable learners of all backgrounds to experience arts in the Welsh language, as well as bilingually, in Wales.
- The geography of the school to facilitate equity of opportunities for all learners in Wales
- We want to fund a wide variety of creative activity that is being developed with schools. To increase fairness in how we are investing across the arts in Wales, Arts Partners cannot be named as delivering activity in more than three open Have a Go applications at any given time. Final reports must be submitted by the lead applicant to close grants before an Arts Partner can be named on additional Have a Go applications
- We will aim to invest equally across all five disciplines (art, drama, dance, film & digital media and music) of the Expressive Arts Area of Learning and Experience. We will continuously monitor the disciplines across local authorities to ensure that we are giving equal opportunities to all five disciplines across Wales.
We know that every school’s reason for applying to us for funding will be different and every school that applies to us can continue to make a case for funding to meet the needs of their learners. When making a case we would encourage you not to copy and paste marketing material into your application, but to really consider what difference our funding will make to teaching and learning in your school.
Find out more
We recommend reading the full guidelines before submitting your application.
If you have any questions about Have a Go, we’d be happy for you to contact us.
Email us at: creative.learning@arts.wales
To access the application form you will need to have registered on the online portal.
We recommend that you register at least 5 working days before you wish to start your application. Once you have received your login details, you can use these to access all Creative Learning Cymru application forms and will not need to re-register when you want to apply again.
If you require further assistance in accessing the online portal, please contact our Grants and Information team: grants@arts.wales