The Vision
01 / BOA Academy
Birmingham Ormiston Academy is an independent state funded 14-19 academy specialising in Creative, Digital and Performing Arts. Students attend BOA primarily to study BTEC level 2 and level 3 vocational courses. Although located in Birmingham, BOA is a regional academy admitting students from Birmingham and the local authorities of Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, and Walsall.
BOA opened in September 2011 with the support of our founding partners, Maverick TV and the BRIT School – although we have numerous creative and industry partners who continue to offer high levels of support, investment, expertise and opportunities for our students and the academy. In the five years since opening, BOA has rapidly gained a reputation as a centre of excellence for the arts. It has impressed the creative industries and subsequently had an extensive array of well-known industry partners who support the differing pathways by helping design, develop and deliver the programmes of study.
BOA is the top performing 14-19 school in the UK, and in the top 10% of all schools in Birmingham.
02 / BOA Digital
BOA Digital will be an 11-18 academy specialising in digital technologies. It will be the sister school to BOA and form part of the newly established BOA group. It is our aim to open BOA Digital in September 2018 located in the centre of Birmingham - geographically in the hub of the digital and creative industries situated around the Eastside and the Knowledge Quarter. This new academy will also be close to Aston University, Birmingham City University (BCU) and their new STEAMhouse project. The STEAMhouse campus is a new innovative space and incubation hub for the creative industries.
Britain’s booming digital economy has created record levels of jobs but the training deficit has left many of these jobs unfilled. With Birmingham being in the top five employers of digital talent and the area of Digbeth providing a growing hub for digital businesses, the new academy will be responding to the needs of Greater Birmingham and its creative digital industries.
The future is very much around developing the digital economy, with 130,000 jobs in the technology sector needing to be filled each year. Our aim is for BOA Digital to be at the forefront of this digital revolution. This industry is here to stay and BOA Digital will maximise the life chances of all its students by working closely with the industry to help address the growing demand for higher level digital skills.
03 / BOA Group
BOA has an ambitious vision to expand from a single academy trust with a number of subsidiary companies including BOAT (Old rep Theatre), BOATV and B2Radio, to a small MAT with a maximum of five schools. We aim to build on our current offer with each academy (school) being uniquely individual but with synergy across the group. Ensuring key partners are both on the Board and represented on the Boards we will continue to develop the strong outward facing ethos in which students and staff benefit from a network of expertise and opportunities from partners and industry curriculum affiliates. BOA has a wealth of significant industry partners such as Live Nation, PRG Lighting and the BBC. These partners offer substantial and significant long term strategic support and investment. They offer exciting opportunities for the students to work in collaboration on a range of projects. Importantly, they offer career progression
Curriculum
BOA Digital will provide an outstanding and distinctive education through a digital and creative curriculum, delivered in partnership with industry professionals and our academic partners (BCU). We aim to develop students academically, vocationally, socially and morally so that they leave the academy as independent, co-operative, responsible, creative young people who will be well rounded, resilient and ambitious to both learn and work in the related digital technologies. BOA Digital will provide a unique range of learning experiences and opportunities which will prepare its students for both higher education and employment.
Through our teaching, partnerships, industry links, pastoral care and monitoring we aim to foster ambition and a culture of high expectations and standards. We aim to maximise the life chances of all our students by providing a stimulating, exciting, challenging, respectful and safe environment where every student is valued, listened to and responded to. Students will not only achieve their personal best but exceed all expectations.
From the outset, our students will be relating their learning to the world of work and understanding the relevance of the activities to the real world.
Year 7 - Year 13
Key stage 3 students at BOA digital will study: Mathematics and Statistics, English, Science, Geography, History, Computer Science and Coding, Art, Drama, Dance, Music, PE and a Modern Foreign Language. Alongside this, they will do a six week technology project (to cover both digital, design and production technology).
It is our intention for our students to start a digital level 2 course in Year 8 and level 3 in Year 10. Currently these would be the new BTEC Technical courses which are just being developed. Within these courses, students would gain a diverse range of digital skills to equip them to respond creatively with exciting and innovative ideas.
The project based learning opportunities will help them develop a wide-ranging and sophisticated set of digital and media skills that will enable them to specialise further as they move onto Post-16 studies.
Until home grown students reach the sixth form Post-16 students will follow level 3 vocational courses alongside academic A Levels.
By the academic year 2023/24 we aim to have worked alongside accreditation providers and industry professionals to develop a Post-16 course (either level 3 or 4) which will be highly original and inspired by the pursuit of digital excellence.
English
Maths
Science
Coding
History
Geography
RE
PE
Drama
Music
Art
Digital Broadcasting
Games Theory, Design, Development
Animation
Interactive Platforms
Digital Marketing
Digital Audio Production
App and Software Development
Data management
Cyber Security
Dance
Progress Updates
Update Sept 16
In June 2015 BOA was approached by the New School Network (NSN) to open a new school. In August the Principal and the two founding partners met with both BIS and the DfE with regards to this. The BOA Board subsequently voted to open at least one new school. Additional meetings have been held with a number of key creative and digital industry leaders who are keen to see a school that can address the skills shortage in this sector. Meetings have also taken place with Birmingham City Council, the Director of Education and the previous Regional Schools Commissioner, who all endorse the BOA2 bid.
We hope to hear whether our bid has been successful early in the new year.
Update Jan 17
Watch this space...
Update April 17
APPROVED! The Department for Education has given the green light to BOA Digital, an innovative academy that will build on the success of Birmingham Ormiston Academy (BOA), the specialist performing arts school in central Birmingham.
“We are thrilled that our plans to open a specialist digital academy, for which there is a groundswell of support amongst local and key digital industry leaders, have received the seal of approval. We are so excited to launch BOA Digital, a milestone in our mission of working with the country's top young talent to teach and train the digital leaders of tomorrow."
Our Partners
and many more...
GET IN TOUCH
Tel: 0121 359 9300
BOA Academy, 1 Grosvenor Street, Birmingham, B4 7QD
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Recent comments from BOA parents:
“I would highly recommend a new school for digital arts.”
“Would definitely recommend the new academy to friends/family based on our BOA experience.”
“This is a truly innovative idea, and great that kids can have the option to specialise in their chosen field.”
“My son would definitely be interested, and I wouldn’t hesitate to send him to the new school.”
“I would recommend any BOA academy to friends/family based on our child’s BOA experience.”
“Our youngest daughter is looking at options for her future and is interested in design and programming. We are very interested in further updates.”
“A very good idea to expand students’ interests that help with the digital future”
“BOA has proved brilliant for our daughter in the first 6 weeks, so we expect BOA-Digital will be a good development”