Breakfast at the BRIT School
| 18:00 UK time, Wednesday, 25 March 2009
On Thursday morning, we're broadcasting from the BRIT School in South London, which is the only non-fee paying performing arts school in the country.
It's produced stars like Amy Winehouse, Leona Lewis and Kate Nash. We'll be finding out what makes this school so successful, what a normal school day is like and what kind of children end up going there. And we'll also hear what happens to the hundreds of pupils who don't end up with big recording contracts or on the front pages of national newspapers.
Our entertainment reporter Colin Paterson took a look around at the school, courtesy of a pair of students - take a look inside the school gates in this short film:
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Why is this school lavished with such funding?
There are enough "entertainers" and wanna be musicians everywhere.
When the pupil started talking about the "state of the art" recording studio they have to "work so hard in" all I could think of was how that money could have been spent on better things.
If we are to compete globally again we need science, maths, english and languages to be at the forefront of education.
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Dont talk to me about the music industry, if your happy to make commercial brit pop like Britany Spears then go ahead if thats your thing, but if your a d.j. / m.c. / producer struggling to make the not so commercial underground musics like hiphop, dubstep and other electronic music then you'll need more than just music and programming skills you'll need a good website with your trade name website developement skills and networking skills, photography, artwork, accounts, ultimately make music you love and makes you happy, as the industry can be a cruel place ;) heh the 5live racing advert with the filtered Amen Break heh cheesecore. All you need is one half decent laptop and the rest like your DAW (digital audio workstation) you can literaly download! I know V-chip he was homeless when he came to Brighton and he made a tune the Lizard remix (dnb) and it went to no1 on 1xtra using only a Sounblaster16 soundcard then it was mixed down at Ed Solos studio. Which prooves it can be done.
You dont need a top school but make the most of it if you can use it, get vocalists conatact details all the musicians you need.
good luck! ToxicSky a.k.a. d.j. usb
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The reporting today was VERY misleading by the BBC. For example Amy Winehouse attended other performing arts schools before the Brits school, as did Leona Lewis. These schools have expensive fees and in the case of Lewis, who unlike Nicky Campbells throwaway comment didn't just get it all from the awful X-Factor but had spent years training to be a classical singer originally and had done endless jobbing sessions as a singer.
Again the reporting was poor, in particular the bloke from the NME. The school is not there to turn out wannabes but people who have a passion for music. As the HT pointed out many people leave the school and have a very successful career in music as session musicians or singers without being 'famous'
Nicky Campbell for some reason kept on and on (as he does) about being famous which is not the point of the school.
Music is one of our greatest exports so why not encourage it? There should be more schools like this, as there should be for science and engineering.
I thought the whole programme was very poor and typical of the output of the BBC these days.
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Funding to the BRIT School is like any other state school i.e. a certain amount is provided per student. The amounts increase with the age of the student. Thus with all students over 14 and most over 16 the funding is proportionally higher than some schools because of this but it uses the same formula. (A sixth form college would get more per head as all are over 16). Of course the BRIT School gets embellishment funding from the sponsors who helped pay for the school to be built in the first place. In this case it is a proportion of the money the BRIT Trust raises each year from the BRIT awards (i.e. is not a taxpayer contribution). Recently some funding was provided for the school to take on a second specialism (Digital Creativity) as part of the Academy Program. Specialist science and Maths academies have had such funding as well at some point. Furthermore, the school has had some award money in the past because it has been so successful in the examination league tables. All successful schools get this. (Remember the exam league tables do not measure music or celebrity potential). Of course all schools deserve the funding for 'state of the art' facilities and of course many schools have this. Our job now is to raise the funding status of those who do not
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I heard parts of the broadcast from the Brit School and found it very disappointing. I agree with gordonglovepuppet that Nicky Clarke harped on repeatedly and unnecessarily about the fame thing, and seemed more interested in talking to and about former students rather than finding out what makes current students tick and what kind of work they are producing. This is meant to be a topical magazine type programme, and I couldn't quite get what it was trying to achieve here. Certainly it was not insightful, which I would put down to poor research/preparation as well as Nicky's one-track and rather negative interviewing. A missed opportunity - pity.
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I was very disappointed by Five Live and the BBC as I am a student at the school and i was watching you set up for broadcast and thinking that as you are the BBC you would profile all the school, but yet again as a Broadcast and Digital Communications student we as are Art and Other departments are left out of your idea that the school is a fame school where the next Leona or Amy is going to come from, well you seem to forget that Ace & Vis from 1Xtra came from my department and entertain people as does Ricky Haywards from Kiss and MTV yet you all in the media show a lack of interest or support for the industry creatives that want to be apart of the industry and NOT everyone in the school cares about fame we all work hard to get a career!
Plus your tour of the school is a farce as you clearly have no interest in the school you just want to play MTV cribs as you show less than 5% of the school and what we do, so thanks BBC for nothing AGAIN!
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