Costume Makers are valuable. They are the universal utility skillset in the costume workroom. They jump on anything from adjustments and fittings to large scale garment making. One minute they are repairing a period bustle or adjusting Victorian trousers, the next moment they are constructing 30 army blazers for a war scene full of extras. It’s dynamic, fast paced, creative detail work. And here’s the thing… there are no where near enough costume makers. The skills shortage is serious. Serious enough for FilmLondon to approach us and ask to partner up on a fast paced training programme to support adults with sewing experience to become Costume Makers.

If Borehamwood were a person, they would be hard working, skilful, highly committed, resilient… but with a low opinion of themselves, poor self esteem, and lacking confidence in their own brilliance. ESA has been serving this community for nearly 14 years! I love the place. It is the perfect playground for ESA. It is the home of the ancillary crafts and trades of the UK creative industries. The place is full of production services companies, grip, camera, light and sound hire houses, prop and costume warehouses, scenic painters and set construction workshops. It is the home of UK film and Television for over 100 years. The place is so cool. Down the road from us is a prop and production company that make all the dead bodies for film and TV! This is the home of the Muppet Show, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Wicked, The Shining, Paddington!

And yet…

We have just commenced a new partnership with CAMHS Digital Lab - the research group creating digital innovations that transform mental  healthcare for children and young people. We will be working together to make high quality media content that can unpack complex ideas in a way that diverse audiences can relate to and understand. Our media production trainees will be producing films and media content that tell the stories of this important research and what it means for the future of mental healthcare. By creating media together, ESA Academy and CAMHS Digital Lab will be pioneering mental health and research content created by young people, for young people.

At ESA, we have designed a curriculum that foregrounds the creative industries. Our ‘pipeline curriculum’ is built to sharpen our students towards crafts, trades and technical disciplines that are crucial to the professional screen and theatre industries. All of these pipelines are then supported by industry partners.

I want to shout out our partners. All those creative professionals and production companies that provide industry placements, mentoring, work experience and employer engagements. These partnerships do not produce grades or statistics and therefore, they are overlooked on results day. BUT. MAKE. NO. MISTAKE. This is the inspiration engine that supercharges skills development.

Surely you’ve heard by now… ESA has only gone and done it… We’ve been judged as OUTSTANDING in every category by Ofsted! We are thoroughly elated - we were also surprisingly moved…

We have over 30 companies supporting this programme providing placements and mentoring. We know from professional experience that credits on real productions and experience inside the industry are the magic ingredients that provide opportunity to new creative talent. Without support from our friends and partners, we would not be able to train such promising future creatives and serve the talent pipeline for the creative sector. So thank you to all our partners and supporters.

Through doing and making, students are grappling with provocative and meaningful concepts. They are exercising empathy in a more realised way because they are having to make creative decisions about how to tell this story and how to convey the complex emotions involved in risky behaviours - the thrill and excitement, the risk and bravery and then the betrayal and grief.

What a phenomenal achievement and genuine honour to be awarded Platinum ArtsMark! This puts us among a very small number of schools across the country leading in creative arts practice and cultural learning.

We have used our Artsmark intentions to galvanise collaborative commitment to increasing access to the creative industries for young people currently under represented in the creative sector and those from disadvantaged backgrounds.  In 2021 we partnered with ScreenSkills and the BFI to become a UK Centre for Screen Excellence, delivering traineeships to diverse young people providing placements directly in the creative industries. 

Curiosity is the space between boredom and a new idea. It is the energy that pushes that new idea along until it becomes a well researched and carefully considered creative action. Curiosity is the engine room of imagination and innovation.

At ESA, we include watching films, TV and theatre as reading. Similarly all forms of textual interpretation including listening to music, researching and analysing art are a form of 'reading' but all of it requires confident multimedia literacy. All of that cultural magic, wonder and reverie starts with reading and loving good stories and writing - in all their forms.

Here at ESA, we believe in ‘code switching’ - by this we mean our ability to move between different types of communication - the informal and the formal; the implicit and the explicit; the intended and the unintended - all communication is meaningful.

Reflecting on my story as a child in Lewisham and a young man in Camden, I am struck by how enriched I am by the diversity and dynamism of this incredible city. How such a mashup of styles and influences has inspired me and added to my insight and how the fruit of the Windrush pioneers and their children has made special and valued contributions to my identity as a Londoner.

It may be too simplistic to say it this way but we really like our students and we want them to know it. We love being with them and knowing them and this comes before our passion for our subject, before our office of hierarchical power. Of course teachers are ‘in charge’, but not because we are superior, rather because we bothered to plan and prepare.