Key Stage Door | Blackbird

A Performing Arts Alternative Education Provision
in partnership with

What is it?

Our story...

Mainstream education is not for everyone and that is absolutely OK. That's where Key Stage Door can help.

Some young people can manage school with a bit of respite from it and some can't manage it at all and need a complete alternative education provision.

At Key Stage Door we offer an Alternative Education Provision in Performing Arts based at Darlington Hippodrome 2 days a week.

It's a bespoke programme for KS3 & KS4 including music, drama, dance and performance as well as some elements of backstage and technical training, to help grow confidence and build self esteem as well as ignite creativity, whilst positively preparing young people for their next steps.

We offer Level 1 & 2 Regulated Qualifications in the form of Trinity College of London Bronze & Silver Arts Award.

The programme is aimed at students who struggle with Emotionally Based School Avoidance (EBSA) but we will consider other students too.

Thursdays and Fridays 9-3pm for 38 weeks per year costing £95 per day. Enrolment is termly with an option to extend.

For more information please get in touch.

Created by Jade Sloan (aka Jade Byrne) of Blackbird Creative Arts and Sarah Wilson of Tracks Darlington, we are both working professionals in the performing arts industry but also we are both parent carers to children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND).

Our wealth of personal experience with Emotionally Based School Avoidance (EBSA) paired with Jade's acting, dance and musical theatre training and Sarah's musician and event planning background plus an EBSA Focus Group ran by Darlington Parent Carer Forum, are what sparked the idea and made Key Stage Door happen but it couldn't have been done without the partnership and support from Darlington Hippodrome too. We aren't the entire faculty though and we'll be announcing our wonderful professional tutors over the coming weeks.

We believe performing arts is a fantastic confidence builder, brilliant for social and emotional skills, great for your mental health and well-being and also a great way to improve on basic English and Maths skills too in a fun way. This is a place for a young person to belong, a place to be express themselves and be creatively challenged but in a very supportive environment.