Info for Students

Congratulations to all our trainees and students on their excellent achievements.  As the creative academy specialising in the trades, crafts and technical disciplines for the cultural industries, ESA is particularly delighted by some amazing outcomes in Media Production, Film Studies, Production Hair & Makeup, Art & Design, Sound Production and Across the Performing Arts. 64% of students across these subjects achieved the top grades available - what an achievement.

An exciting new partnership is underway. We are delighted to announce that we have partnered up with CAMHS Digital Lab on an exciting new initiative - ‘RESEARCH EXPLORED’. We will be collaborating on groundbreaking research into the mental health crisis for young people whilst making innovative short films and media content including digital animation, script writing, art direction and post production.

In a year when English and Maths outcomes went down nationally, ESA’s results went up!  What a year it has been for ESA - we were judged to be outstanding in every category by Ofsted in February 2025 and now, even more importantly, our students have achieved some excellent results.  

ESA has had a remarkable year.  The school was inspected by Ofsted and judged to be outstanding in all categories in February 2025 and now, 6 months later, the creative arts college sees some of its best results ever!

Following our Ofsted inspection in January, we are proudly delighted that Ofsted concluded ESA is providing an outstanding quality of education and training. In fact, they judged ESA to be outstanding in every category.

“If you know how to read, you have a complete education about life. But if you don't know how to read, you don't know how to decide.” - Ray Bradbury

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The man who never reads lives only one.” (G Martin)

Aaran, age 14 from Elstree Screen Arts Academy (ESA), has won the national reading award ‘Reading Plus Star of the Year’ for his hard work and effort leading to significant reading improvement. He received a trophy, certificate and £25 Amazon voucher in recognition of his award. 

As ESA Leader of Reading I support students in their learning and well being with a focus on reading and literacy. I promote Reading as a fundamental part of learning, comprehension and success in their educational journey. It links into our mission as a creative academy in the cultural sector as reading, interpretation and imagination are crucial in making and creating content.

Here at ESA, we take an innovative, proactive and positive approach to attendance with our students. We love coming to school each day and are keen that our students want to be here too.

We are certainly proud of the outcomes our students have achieved,  but we are even more impressed by who they have become and who they have shown themselves to be.  Many of our students have come to us from unsuccessful educational experiences and they have found their voice, developed confidence studying a creative specialism that they love.  They have developed independence and resilience.  We love them, we’re proud of them and we can’t wait to see what they go on to create and all the contributions they will make to our shared future.

ESA students have blown us away this year. Their commitment to mastering creative skills and technical crafts has enabled them to achieve nationally impressive results and to prove once again why creative arts training is so important and vibrant, creative opportunities and exciting futures await them. Go, dazzle, care and innovate. Congratulations to all ESA post 16 graduates.

Can’t wait to see this exhibition. The installation is looking FIRE 🔥🔥🔥

It’s an open event… so feel free to just turn up. The event is showing as ‘sold out’ but you can rock up on the night! It’ll be worth it. Come get some culture. There is ESA media, production and creative arts on show - films, photography, makeup, films and media content. See what tomorrow’s creatives are up to!

In celebration of our 10th anniversary on 17th May 2024, we commissioned professional photographer and ESA alumnus Devon Shoob to take a series of photographic portraits of ESA Alumni now working in the creative industries. The result was a wonderful exhibition - ESA Creative Futures.

We are so proud of our alumni who leave us as trainees and return as partners. This exhibition is symbolic of the talent we have seen cultivated at ESA… there are of course many more… maybe we should commission such an exhibition every year or so!

What a night! ESA hosted over 100 friends, partners, trustees, alumni and special guests at an evening event to celebrate a decade of Elstree Screen Arts. We were so grateful to welcome back colleagues from The Baker Dearing Trust, not least Lord Kenneth Baker who founded UTCs - one of which was Elstree UTC in 2013 which then became ESA.

We have post 16 reading mentors supporting lower level readers, we have whole school participation in ESA Big Reads taking place in tutor times and our Reading Plus students have been seeing big (and I mean BIG) developments in comprehension accuracy and decoding speed. In some cases we have seen early readers becoming high level readers in only a matter of months.

Diversity is a necessary component of creativity. It is in variety and difference and collaborative connection that innovation happens… Diversity is the collage, the melting pot, the carnival, the quilt. It is the smushing together in love and appreciation and curiosity and acceptance that we find a greater truth to our shared existence.

Our award winning film received a cinema release at Vue Leicester Square las weekend. This was an ambitious and impressive piece of work produced by ESA Productions, directed by our own tutor Adam Spinks and crewed by our ScreenCraft trainees. Over 20 ESA students achieved credits on this production, which also won the Documentary Feature award at the I Will Tell International Film Festival.

Almost 11 years ago when we launched this school, we dreamily joked of winning Baftas… Well, that is still a dream but today, it is a little more plausible. Yesterday, ESA Productions [our very own content creation company staffed and crewed by ESA students and trainees] WON the ‘Hidden Gem’ award in the category of Best Documentary at the I Will Tell International Film Festival.

Our updated showreel has arrived! It now includes our theatre productions from 2023 as well as snippets from our new documentary film - nominated for best documentary feature at the ‘I Will Tell’ International Film Festival. The style of our new showreel is rightly more cinematic with a soundtrack to convey a more ‘epic’ tone.

We’re all set! We open our doors to all new prospective students next week! If you’re interested in checking us out in person, hearing from staff and students and generally feeling the vibe of this place, come along from 5pm to 8pm on Wednesday 11th October. The principal’s talk is technically fully booked BUT, it’s always worth turning up as there is usually a bit of space to squeeze in.

Congratulations to ESA students who are receiving their results today. In a year when GCSE results have fallen nationally, we are so proud of our students who have still managed to secure outstanding results.