A desire to Improve the education of and opportunities for children from deprived backgrounds drove Marc Jordan to found the Creative Education Trust in 2010.

Jordan's background was in publishing and the creative industries but, as he wrote in the Trust's magazine, Connected, "I knew the value of education as an enabler of social mobility from the experience of my own family.

"I wanted to work with children in communities that had had a raw deal and try to improve schools that just weren't offering the start in life that young people deserved."

Thanks to funding from philanthropic bodies, including the Conran Foundation, today his creation is a growing multi-academy trust educating more than 13,000 children in 17 primary and secondary schools in the Midlands and Norfolk. Its ambition is to be the leading provider of state education nationally.

It has targeted schools in areas of economic disadvantage and with a history of academic underachievement and transformed them by integrating a knowledge-rich curriculum with skills and creativity.

Creative Education Trust defines creativity as the ability to find connections between the things we know and turn them into new ideas and action. It says the academic arts and the sciences, practical subjects and life skills all need this creativity, and creativity is valued highly by employers.

Staff and expert advisers at the trust use imaginative methods for linking knowledge across subject boundaries, fostering personal development and resilience and developing practical skills that prepare pupils for their transition to adult life and employment.