Work is under way for the doors to open on Birmingham’s first £25 million “fame academy”.
The Birmingham Ormiston Academy (BOA), next to Millennium Point in the city centre, will nurture future stars of the stage and screen when it welcomes its first crop of students in September 2011. Modelled on the famous BRIT school in London, which launched the careers of pop stars such as Leona Lewis, Kate Nash and Amy Winehouse, the academy will specialise in digital media and the creative and performing arts.
Facilities will include a 300-seat theatre, four dance studios, six rehearsal studios, open air amphitheatre and a TV studio.
Principal Gaynor Cheshire was joined at the site by academy sponsors and Birmingham City Council’s education chief, Coun Les Lawrence, at a ceremony to mark workers reaching the highest point in its structure.
Miss Cheshire said: “I am delighted to see the building take shape now and we are all terribly excited at the prospect of moving into this tremendous space next year.
“BOA will be such an asset to both Birmingham and the wider West Midland regions and for BOA, having the Millennium Point and Thinktank as neighbours is incredible.”
More than 300 sixth form students are expected to start at the academy in September, with a 14-16-year olds starting in 2012.
Miss Cheshire added that prospective students will try out for a place via “aptitude workshops” due to take place in March.
The academy has been sponsored by Ormiston Trust, Birmingham City University and partnered with Maverick TV and the BRIT School.
2011 for sixth form years and will include 14-16 year-olds in 2012.
Coun Lawrence, said: “The city needs this academy firstly to increase the educational opportunities for young people and secondly to add an extra dimension to the learning quarter that will make the area one of the best in the country, if not in a European sense.”
BOA is a regional academy, admitting students from across Birmingham and the Black Country.
