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Interview: BRIT School Principal Stuart Worden on Adele, Education, and Creative Futures

The BRIT School, a free UK performing and creative arts institution, was founded in 1991 with support from the UK recorded music industry. Principal Stuart Worden discusses its mission to train young people for creative careers, including a

BroadwayWorld·May 11, 2026·via BroadwayWorld

Interview: BRIT School Principal Stuart Worden on Adele, Education, and Creative Futures

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“We have to raise £2.5m+ per year to cover the gap between government funding and what we actually need”

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Opened in 1991 with the support of the UK recorded music industry through The BRIT Trust and the BPI, The BRIT School is the leading Performing and Creative Arts school in the UK and is completely FREE to attend. Its mission is to train and educate young people for future careers in the booming creative industries.

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19 may sees the return of The Other Songs Live , a fundraiser in aid of The BRIT School. Global entertainment and music company The Other Songs have unveiled an incredible lineup of songwriters and musicians set to take the stage at The London Palladium.

BroadwayWorld spoke to Stuart Worden, the Principal of The BRIT School about the ethos of the school, launching the careers of Adele, Olivia Dean and why The Other Songs Live is such an important event.

The BRIT School is located in a challenging part of London, but underlines its ambition in a bold mission statement and received a five star Outstanding report from OFSTED. So how do you do it? How do you make superstars in Croydon?

Thanks for putting those together, because it has happened. We’re getting there (we’re never ‘there’) because it’s a kind of adventure.

We’ve decided on how an art school should be run in order for young people to express themselves the best they can. We encourage young people to be themselves, to write their own material, to find out what they believe in and to be free from bullying and prejudicial treatment.

If you’re a dancer at BRIT School, that’s your A game, and we celebrate that, but we also celebrate it if you’re good at maths too.

The school is free - nobody pays to come here. That ensures that everyone is welcome and fosters a sense of belonging which promotes confidence in a place young people can call home during school hours. And we like to have a good time too.

We’ve gained really good relationships with industry, who are forever helpful. That’s the theatre world with Andrew Lloyd Webber , the music world with major and independent labels, backstage crewing with PRG and Britannia Row and, more recently, in fashion with Burberry. The industries have been good to the school.

We were set up here [in 1991] because it was an area of deprivation with the intention of having a positive impact on the local community. And we’ve done that - it’s been a joy.

So there’s some of the reasons!

Pupils are aged 14-19 and there’s about 1400 on the roll. It’s not a fee-paying school, so how do you go about getting your intake? You must get more applications than places.

There are, although there probably aren’t as many applications as the world thinks. At open evenings, we make it clear that the school is serious about attendance, serious about punctuality and serious about working hard on your art form. So people might not fancy that.

Then it’s about potential. As a state school, we have to recognise that lots of the kids who join are ‘not there yet’. Adele had never written a song before she came to the BRIT School, because she had not been encouraged to. Raye, or Rachel Keen as I know her, had written songs because she came from that background.

This is a diverse school. It must take a significant percentage of pupils from low income families and a significant percentage with Special Educational Needs. So sometimes we take young people who are a huge risk in a normal education setting. We’re not allowed to take people on academic ability or look at exam results or think about traditional academic subjects. It’s the potential in their art form that counts.

How do you identify in an Adele for example, who had never written a song, the raw talent and drive to become the biggest star in the world?

I remember that kid. She was amazing. She had an absolute passion for Ella Fitzgerald , Nina Simone, Billie Holliday - quite rare in a 14 year old. She liked the Spice Girls and Eminem too!

How do we do it? I’ve just been talking to a filmmaker who’s leaving the school with aspirations of making movies. He came here never having made a film before - he couldn’t afford a camera. But he had photos on his phone and he showed, through them, that he had a passion for images and storytelling using the only tool he had. He said the best thing about the BRIT School is that all the equipment is free.

If you give our young people (or those you come through our Saturday BRIT School Scheme) the means of production, that makes everything possible. I was talking to a rapper the other day who used our recording studio and told me he was now being taken seriously because he could work like a professional in a professional environment. That’s a pretty powerful message for us.

A lot can’t afford the audition fees for some Higher Education institutions, so we’ve asked for waivers for our kids from low income backgrounds, and they’ve done that. So that broadens the talent pipeline.

Our community programme gives access to about 10,000 young people and adults to the arts. We’ll take our dance students into local schools to show the power of dance. We have a production course funded by Andrew Lloyd Webber because he sees the West End as too male and too white. So he asked us to go into schools and talk about lighting, sound, costume - we did that and about 45% of our students studying technical theatre are from the global majority.

It’s not just facilities and money, it’s confidence too.

There are metrics that all state schools use to identify kids from low income backgrounds - and they’re not bad at identifying those who might need additional support in that area. We also have a vulnerable bursary scheme here.

We’ve set up a scheme for people in the lower school to have money to go to one arts event of their choice each year - it could be a gig, tickets to a cinema, a dance show or an art gallery.

Confidence grows with experience. Some of our students said that they’d always wanted to visit a New York school that specialises in black contemporary dance. The costs were prohibitive for a lot of them - but we went out to find the money. That’s how the record industry helped get us to Alvin Ailey ’s Dance School.

For these kids, that’s going to blow their minds, it’s going to show them what’s possible. They can see themselves, the dream is made real and not just a Billy Elliot film fantasy. So your budget has to give access to those who can’t afford it before anything else. Staff have to understand that they need that extra mile.

Stormzy grew up near here (he didn’t go to the BRIT School) and he employed a filmmaker from a local estate when he first started. He had gone to our school and couldn’t afford a camera, but knew he could make videos. So we gave him the camera for the weekend to make his film for Stormzy. We also gave the cameras to Mandem on the Wall to make their first comedy sketches and they’ve gone on to Netflix and Hollywood.

It’s about direct actions, clear budgeting decisions, how you talk to young people, where you take your work. If some people are reluctant to visit some schools in and around Croydon, then that’s why we go.

I saw a piece last week, a musical written by the kids about one of their peers (not from our school) who had been killed on the streets of Croydon. They wrote it as a memorial, but also in the hope that it might help prevent it happening again - because people just won’t talk about that stuff.

We do a show every year that’s free for local primary schools. I stood at the door for the first show of the week, as the Year 5s and 6s are leaving and I heard one say, “That’s the best show I’ve ever seen!” and his mate says “That’s the only show you’ve ever seen”. It’s funny, but it’s also a bit of a crime. That said, it’s expensive to see a show.

Tell me about your upcoming event at The London Palladium?

Andrew Lloyd Webber has always supported the school, because he saw that many young actors of colour had come from it and so he said he wanted to help. We found that drama school was expensive for young people, so he supported a course that helped to bridge the gap.

Next he wanted to help with backstage and introduced me to his two sons, Alastair and Billy, who run The Other Songs . That organisation believes in original songs and original talent - as does the BRIT School. So they wanted one of our students to perform at their concerts.

These were small, but beautifully intimate shows downstairs at The Other Palace. You would have Joan Armatrading with one of our kids! They would have the same billing on the publicity.

We have to raise £2.5m+ per year to cover the gap between government funding and what we actually need, so we have to do fundraisers.

Nile Rogers visited us about eight years ago and loved it, saying that he wished that he had had a place like this when he was young.

When AL Webber and I were putting the show together, we wanted BRIT School current students to perform the songs of songwriters - it felt right. We wanted a couple of names in there too, so the kids are the backing band for Nile. It’s a moment for the kids to understand that this is very possible.

It’s a celebration of original songwriting, a celebration of free arts education, a celebration of what’s possible - it’s going to be an exciting night!

How do you build long term relationships with the creative industries?

The music industry has always supported the school - for 35 years now. They’ve invested through the BRIT Awards and the BRIT Trust. Without them, there is no BRIT School, no starting point for Olivia Dean.

Other industries know that in order for talent to surface, it has to be invested in, So Burberry have helped support the fashion course and Apple have supported tech courses. Investors have seen the success of the school and know that arts usually start at school.

Lots of them are coming to The Palladium on the 19 May, along with new partners like Universal Music Publishing and Spotify. It’s going to be a big night for everyone connected to the BRIT School!

The Other Songs Live, with Nile Rogers , Justin Tranter , Cathy Dennis, Jos Rivers, Selorm Adonu, Andrew Lloyd Webber , Cush Jumbo and Zach Nahome, is at The London Palladium on 19 May

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