The North Wall: 'Great facility embodies the ethos of the school'

• Matthew Albrighton: 'Great ethos'

MATTHEW Albrighton is St Edward’s deputy head academic. He became a geography teacher following a spell working in advertising after graduating from Cambridge University

“I believe that all pupils in this school should engage with the creative arts, either within the curriculum – and we steer people to do that – and through their wider commitments outside the classroom.

“One of the really worrying things, I think, is the way education has gone in the past 15 to 20 years, that it has become almost too pragmatic about exam results and you focus in far too early – I’m going to be, say, someone who works in the City, and I close off all avenues of my brain from the age of 12.

“Not only do I think that’s limiting, not just in terms of their general approach to life, but there has been a lot of research done that shows it’s stopping the development of the brain in a really full way.

“If you are saying ‘I’m only going to learn maths’, you are actually limiting your brain. So the engagement with the creative arts for all our pupils matters. And it’s not just creative arts. We want all our pupils to engage with languages, with the humanities, sciences and maths and keep that breadth, because we want to develop the person and the skill set.

“They’ve got plenty of time to work out what they’re going to do later. What we need to equip them with is a full faculty, such that, when they apply themselves, they’ve got that diversity of skills - and the creative arts are absolutely essential to that.”

He added: “The Warden often talks about people being light on their feet. The jobs that our leavers will do probably don’t exist yet, so how do you prepare for something that you don’t know exists? That requires an adaptability which is brought out by studying the arts and the creative elements.

“I worked at a similar sort of school previously and we had nowhere near the number of people doing creative arts. Dance was on offer but not taken up by many pupils. Here the pupils are volunteering to do it.

“It’s not because we’re saying ‘you must do dance’. They want to do it and it’s the culture of this school and the way our facilities are set up. And is part of why the North Wall continues to thrive, because it just embodies the spirit and ethos of the whole place.”

• Katrina Eden : 'We've always been at the forefront'

KATRINA Eden is head of drama at St Edward’s, part of a three-strong team of drama teachers

“There are all sort of reasons why The North Wall works so well for us. As a department we have access to professional facilities all the time, so our studio is set up to be like a professional space and we do a lot of our exam and co-curricular performances in there. We’re also able to use the main theatre for rehearsals and lessons.

“The technical team are professionals and work with students both in and out of the classroom to develop their skills. Quite a few students have gone on to become professional technicians, because they have had mentoring from the team here. The other thing that’s really of benefit is The North Wall’s drama programme.

“We have some of the best theatre companies in the world perform in our theatre. The students get to watch their work and work with them.

“We have a lot of workshops in lessons and, because we are a boarding school, we have the pupils pretty much all the time, so they come and work with visiting companies in the evenings, with some of the leading theatre practitioners in the world, which you don’t get unless you have your own theatre where you can attract people.”

She added: “There will always be people who say creative arts are extra to academic work, that they are less important or less laudable but economically this country has a huge investment in the creative arts and we sell an awful lot of our ‘product’ in theatre and performance work to the rest of the world.

“We’ve always been at the forefront of this area and the school sees that and I think the North Wall is integral to that.

“The North Wall is in a league of its own. Many schools have excellent theatres but the scope of The North Wall, the sheer number of shows and its outreach work make it very different.”

• Adam Hahn: 'Giving young people a vision of life as an artist'

ADAM Hahn is head of art at St Edward’s. He and the department’s other members of staff are all working artists and exhibit at The North Wall

“Having The North Wall here is amazing. It gives pupils a vision of what it’s like to be an artist and the opportunity to exhibit in a public gallery and a chance to see their work outside the studio and classroom.

“And it allows the public to see their work and gives a gateway to the public and the public a gateway to the pupils. The North Wall bridges that gap and is a brilliant opportunity for them.”

Pupils in the upper sixth studying for the International Baccalaureate (IB) also get the chance to organise their own show at The North Wall as part of their coursework. That gives the pupils a greater sense of achievement – that they’re showing work in their own exhibition, that they have curated, and it’s in The North Wall instead of a classroom or school setting,” said Mr Hahn. “We always take pupils over to see the exhibitions, so they get a lot of access to outside influences that mean even if we can’t get out all the time to major galleries in London, they get artwork coming in, which is brilliant.

“During a lesson, we can say ‘there’s an exhibition at The North Wall that’s relevant for you’ and send a couple of pupils down there and they can see something instantly, first-hand. We also work with the artists. We have two coming in May, Geoff Dunlop and Dean Byass, who will be collaborating with the fourth form, which will be brilliant.”

Pupils who study art for A-Level and IB at St Edward’s often go on to art schools, with Oxford Brookes and Central St Martin’s in London among their destinations. One past pupil, Freddie Crossley recently exhibited a range of his ceramic work at the North Wall and Mr Hahn hopes others will follow.

“It’s quite nice to have someone come full circle. It would be great to get more pupils back who have continued to art careers and encourage other pupils to follow.”

• Neville Creed 'Everything from breakdance to ballet'

NEVILLE Creed is the director of cultural activities at St Edward’s and was director of music when The North Wall opened in 2007. He is also the artistic director of the London Philharmonic Choir

“When we were thinking about the North Wall, initially there wasn’t a plan for a dance studio, but as we thought about it more, we felt it would be a great opportunity to have a dedicated dance studio, therefore we have a superb space, which has made a huge difference.

“It meant we could develop a really interesting dance programme. We appointed Lisa Elkins as head of dance and initially there were a couple of teachers doing dance lessons in ballet, street and hip-hop.

“Over the past 10 years, it has really grown, so now Lisa oversees a team of 10 teachers and we run 70 to 80 lessons a week and give three major dance performances each year, some in The North Wall and some in school. The programme involves about 200 pupils, around a third of the school, and offers 20 styles of dance.

“Breakdance is very popular with the boys and that was our initial method of encouraging them to do dance. Now more and more are doing things like ballet and street dance, so it’s great to see more boys taking it up, as well as lots of the girls.”

He added: “We’re not the Royal Ballet School but we do appeal to a lot of parents who have children enthusiastic about dance but who also want a regular education. Some of the pupils do eight or 10 hours of a dance lessons a week – somewhere like the Royal Ballet School would obviously do more – but there aren’t many schools that will offer so many opportunities in dance.

“Some of the dancers in the sixth form are beyond Grade 8 level and are doing vocational qualifications. It’s an incredible discipline and you always find, without exception, that the pupils who are getting to that level in dance are also succeeding very strongly in their academic work.”