Essa Academy, Bolton

School profile 

Essa Academy is a secondary school in Bolton, Greater Manchester of currently 1094 pupils, rated Good by Ofsted (October 2021), The percentage of Pupil Premium eligible pupils is 36.9%. The percentage of pupils receiving free school meals is 33%, significantly higher than the national average. The percentage of EAL students is particularly high at 72.9% and the percentage of SEND students is 19.3%. 

Essa Academy is situated in an area of deprivation with a multi-cultural school intake. 

Our aim 

The school motto is ‘All Will Succeed.'  The Principal, Mr Knowles says that ‘Music is the soul of our school.' Arts subjects including Music are compulsory for all students when opting for GCSE’s. 

What we do 

Music has seen a steady increase in student popularity, engagement, and love for the subject due to a combination of factors. New and additional music teaching staff alongside expansion of the Peripatetic Music Teaching Service in partnership with the Bolton Music Hub. We as a school pay for that service whereas in some school’s parents pay for lessons. 

The music room has moved to accommodate the uptake of keen music students and is now in a central location in the school. As people walk into the building, the first thing that they will hear is music from the music room. Mr Duffy is the subject leader and head of the Performing Arts faculty and is an experienced teacher and musician.  The members of the peripatetic team are all experienced teachers and musicians. We also have regular music trainees, as a training provider, investing in the future of music educators. 

"Having the opportunity to implement the MiSST Music programme at Essa Academy is an incredibly exciting prospect.  To work alongside leaders of classical music excellence and leaders of music education is a huge opportunity for our music teachers, staff body as a whole and most importantly our students.  Music at Essa has had an incredible journey so far, with incredibly supportive leadership and dedicated staff, music is already a much loved and respected subject within our school community.  Students from multi-faith communities embrace music as the common language that it is and culturally, music helps us as a school community to come together in learning, extra-curricular opportunities and performance.  

One of the biggest barriers that we face is student ownership of musical instruments, support around home music making and community engagement in western classical music.  The MiSST partnership feels like it will be the cornerstone and grand finale of the music journey for students at Essa.  The opportunity to own an instrument will transform the lives of our students and offer a world of magic and wonder that as musicians we know that it will.  I cannot wait for our students to be making orchestral music together, collaborating, communicating and expressing themselves with high quality bespoke tuition and schema.  The opportunities for performance pathways alongside our colleagues at Bolton Music Service and an Orchestra within the trust utilising student leaders is now a real possibility.  We have sown the seeds at Essa for musical fruition and now alongside MiSST, the future will bear fruit."