November 3, 2025, by Arts Placements

Countless Opportunities With the Lovely Team at Ignite! Charity

Ana Vieru, current 2nd year Modern Languages student, looks back over her 5-week placement with Ignite! on the Creative Placement Programme.

One of the highlights of my summer was undertaking a paid work placement for five weeks with the charity Ignite! in Nottingham. Their mission is to spark children’s and young people’s curiosity and creativity to help prepare them for a rapidly-changing world. This goal really resonated with me.   I find it fascinating working with children and seeing how they think outside the box no matter what task they are given.  With the current state of the world being full of uncertainty, Ignite’s mission becomes more important than ever before.

I was based both in their office in the city centre, and worked from home once a week. This was my first time working in a full-time job.  Settling into a routine took less time than I was expecting. Once I had my instructions, I gained motivation from knowing exactly what I had to complete. This developed my time management immensely, as well as my ability to take initiative.  It meant I structured my day in a way that maximised the duties I finished without working overtime.  I learnt to make confident decisions if my manager was not around to advise me as she was also very busy.

This was a paid placement, and Ignite reimbursed me for any travel I undertook when delivering activities for the programme. I still had to pay for my travel to and from work every day, but the salary I was earning more than covered that.

I would recommend this placement to anyone who is not sure of what they want in a job. Regardless of whether they want to work in an office or want to be out and about working with people or something else entirely. This placement was amazing at providing me with opportunities to experience what working in different ways is like. I planned my own event for children to participate in; I undertook training to understand how to implement learning and child rights into fun activities; I designed promotional materials within an office (alongside learning how to use Canva); I gathered feedback to evaluate the effectiveness of programmes and see where improvements could be made.

My manager was also incredibly keen for me to explore options that interested me.  This led to a day when I was able to shadow an early years practitioner so I could understand the impact of creative engagement on the development of very young children.  It also meant a weekend working at a festival showing children how to carry out some simple science experiments. All of this developed employability skills I had not used in a professional setting before.

This placement would not have been possible without the help of the Arts Placements Team either.  Having their assistance if I was unsure of anything was a massive plus!

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