For several years, it has been the ambition at Chipping Campden School to build a Performance Arts Centre, and exciting plans are to build this new facilty on the School campus where the Youth Centre currently stands. We are now close to realising our dream to provide our students and community a fabulous new building that includes a large auditorium, seating over 300, a bespoke dance studio/green room, two new classrooms and a seminar room. This new facility will totally transform our performance arts offering for our students and wider community, for many generations.

To launch our plans, we recently invited 150 guests from the local community to enjoy an evening of special performances by some of our past and present students. We were delighted to welcome back Eleanor Broomfield (2010) a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music who performed an aria from Marriage of Figaro and Francesca Lombardelli (2015), currently studying percussion at the Royal Academy of Music, who played Highland by Joe Locke on the vibraphone. Great talent amongst our student body from Year 8 to Year 13 was on display across dance, music and drama.

The evening started with a powerful speech from Julian Lloyd Webber, Principal of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Mr Lloyd Webber is a valued supporter of our plans to build a Performance Arts Centre; he passionately believes it is every child's right to learn to play music and that the creative subjects,are being downgraded by the EBacc system that schools follow. Indeed, the number of students taking Music GCSE is in decline, but we are pleased to say that we buck this trend at CCS. 

The world of dance was represented Namron, OBE, who performed and talked about the power of dance and the impact the Performance Arts Centre will have on our thriving dance community. Campden is one of a few schools in the area that offers the opportunity to study dance GCSE and several students travel long distances to study dance under the guidance of Rozie Torley. 

The evening ended with a wonderful speech from alumnus, Edward Bennett (1998), who is currently playing Macduff in the RSC's production of Macbeth. Edward has long-supported our plans to build a Performance Arts Centre and is a tremendous ambassador for the project. 


To transform the Main Hall for the night, tables, chairs and linen were borrowed from the Cotswold House Hotel  and delicious Cotswold Canapes. A French Cremant added extra to the sparkle of the evening. 


We are still waiting for full planning consent from Cotswold District Council to proceed, but are hoping we will be able to start building the project in early 2019. If you would like to find out more about our plans, please contact Alex O'Donnell aodonnell@ccsacademy.net