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400 students were enrolled for that first academic year but by 1998 when the School astonishingly celebrated its first top twenty hit( Sexy Cinderella by the late and much lamented Lynden David Hall who was the oldest student on the School’ s opening day) numbers began to rise as the School’ s popularity grew.
Increasing numbers( 900 by 2007 and 1,400 today) coupled with rapid advances in technology created space problems. An additional wing was built to rehouse the Music and Dance departments and, later, the Interactive Digital Design Mac suites, to teach the most up to date skills for a digital age. The Music practice rooms house an array of instruments to nurture bands( The Kooks, The Feeling and recently black midi have formed in those spaces) and is now named the Nile Rodgers Music Suite due to his support.
A second theatre was opened in 2014 by the Duchess of Cornwall, to house assemblies, theatre and musical theatre shows and exhibitions.
The BRIT School has never stood still – the numbers have grown, buildings have been developed or adapted and the strands on offer were either introduced and / or evolved to meet the changing demands of the creative industries that BRIT was serving. The pandemic saw The BRIT School community of staff, students, parents and friends come together, working tirelessly to ensure no young person was left out or behind as a result of the lockdowns. With the support of our donors and partners- including Arts Council England’ s‘ Culture Recovery Fund’- we have come through the other side with an even stronger sense of community and a focus on the young people we support. As Stuart says in his opening remarks –“ The BRIT School is a good news story for the country.” Its contribution, in its thirty year history, on a social, cultural and economic perspective can be measured.
And, while transforming lives, and transforming itself, the School has stayed constant to the Northern Star of its principles and values. What BRIT stands for is to challenge every student to consider his / her / their position at the School and in society. There is no more powerful way of opening minds through an education and engagement with the arts. To be inquisitive, to be collaborative and to explore how art forms can be interpreted and reinterpreted – education in the timeless way – promotes both an individual sense of justice as well as a broad social one. The BRIT indeed transforms.