Success for Redmaids’ High Juniors in the Independent Schools of the Year Awards 2026

To celebrate our success as finalists in the Performing Arts category at the Independent Schools of the Year Awards, which we attended in London recently, we’d like to share our story with the school community. It’s a tale that belongs to each and every pupil at Redmaids’ High Junior School, told here from the perspective of Emma.* 

“My friends are intrigued - Emma’s a different child!”, enthused Emma’s Mum, after the Year 3/4 Performing Arts Workshop performance, in February, this year. We agreed! We attribute much of Emma’s personal transformation to our performing arts programme at the Junior School. Here, our understanding of excellence in Performing Arts is how music, dance and drama contribute to the personal development of every child in the school.

An early experience for Emma was our whole school Big Girl Little Girl Day, September 2024, where our Year 3 intake (along with new joiners across other year groups) is buddied with older pupils as mentors for their time at school together. During an energetic dance and drumming workshop by the St Paul’s carnival company Afidance, Emma was disengaged: overwhelmed, she was sheltered by her class teacher for reassurance and regulation.  

In weekly curriculum drama lessons that term, which combine the skills needed to learn how to speak up and express yourself with emotional literacy, empathy and self-understanding, Emma began to establish a trusting relationship with her class teacher, through which her burgeoning personal confidence grew roots. In December 2024, we watched our Year 3 pupils give irrepressible little waves to their families in our local church as they advanced onstage to perform the Nativity, written by Year 5 pupils, at our annual community Carol Service. You might notice that Emma’s Angel Gabriel clutched her wings a little too tightly; if she spoke her brief lines quietly, she was clear and expressive nonetheless, stepping out of her comfort zone.

With the teacher’s joy that comes from watching children grow, we beheld Emma gradually take off. In Year 4, she began individual LAMDA drama lessons. She joined Ballet Club, Music Minstrels Club, Dance and Choreography Club and Handbells Club, which she particularly enjoys: “The bell I like playing is E6 - it’s not too high, it’s calming” - an insightful comment from a child who benefits from self-regulating experiences. Concurrently, Emma’s class teacher noted that “She began to take risks in her learning, she formed new friendships and began to initiate play”, as a direct indictment of our performing arts provision.

Girls were as effervescent as the aerosol hairspray bottle their teacher wielded in February 2026, as they readied for their performance. Designed as an immersive two-day experience, pupils work in House groups alongside class teachers, our Music Lead and visiting Dance and Drama tutors. They learn drama skills in movement and montage, craft simple dialogue and direct address, hold two-part choral harmonies and memorise choreography. We involve the children throughout the creative decision-making process and that’s indispensable - it gives them ownership, investment and self-confidence.

Former Head Teacher Lisa Brown agreed with Emma’s mum: “The difference in Emma is like night and day. This is what we do for all our pupils.” As our case study authenticates, the transformative power of Performing Arts at Redmaids’ High Junior School is without limits, for everyone.

*Names have been changed for safeguarding reasons.

To find out more about our inclusive approach to all areas of school life, please get in touch here.