The Music & Drama Education Awards celebrate the contribution made by practitioners, schools, charities and other organisations to the lives of children, young people and adults across the UK. Widely recognised across the music and drama education sectors, the awards are judged by an expert panel drawn from across both fields. Winners will be announced on 11 February 2027.

Bridge Learning Campus, an all-through academy serving the Hartcliffe community, brought drama back into its Key Stage 3 curriculum in 2024–25 after eight years without a drama specialist. The residency, which ran across the first two terms of the 2025–26 academic year, built a visible, valued pathway in drama and opened pupils’ eyes to the creative careers on their doorstep. 

Year 9 pupils went behind the scenes at The Bottle Yard Studios, the largest film and TV studio facility in the West of England and a short walk from the school, and at Bristol Hippodrome. Inspired by what they saw, pupils joined an after-school drama club led by Brave Bold Drama, named their own film company, Trapped Monster Studios, and made three short films. The films were premiered in March 2026 to an audience of staff, families and friends, complete with popcorn and a Q&A with the artists. The young people who took part regularly went on to achieve the externally certificated Arts Award Discover.

The residency also left a lasting legacy for staff. Gill Simmons of Brave Bold Drama and freelance lighting designer Jen Roxburgh restored the school’s lighting rig, which had fallen into disrepair, trained staff to use it and produced a bespoke instruction manual for future concerts, performances and events.

As a result, 30 students signed up to study BTEC Drama from September 2026, a course the school had previously been unable to fill. 

Liz Hackling, Head of Pupil Engagement at Bridge Learning Campus, said: “They had a safe space in which they could be creative. And they had, you know, some students saying, ‘no, I don’t want to act’. And by the end of it, they all showed their face in [the film]. So, it was brilliant.”

Simon Lock, CEO of West of England Music and Arts, said:  “We are thrilled to see this residency recognised at the Music & Drama Education Awards. It shows what becomes possible when schools and creative practitioners are given the time and support to work together properly. Thirty young people choosing to study drama, at a school that could not fill the course just a year earlier, is exactly the kind of lasting change our Cultural Education Hub was set up to make. This shortlisting is a tribute to the pupils and staff at Bridge Learning Campus and to the brilliant team at Brave Bold Drama.”

The Bridge Learning Campus residency is one of a series of Cultural Education Hub residencies examined in independent research by Dr Ally Daubney, published in May 2026.

The full case study and research reports are available at wema.org.uk/cultural-education-hub-research/