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Fundraising and Development at the Purcell School

The School’s mission is “to provide young musicians of exceptional promise and talent with the best possible teaching and environment in which to fulfil their potential, irrespective of their background” and meet its primary strategic aim of “enhancing the School’s reputation and facilities so that it becomes, for an ever growing number of young musicians and their parents, the specialist school of their first choice”.

The opening of a new, state of the art music centre by School patron Sir Simon Rattle in 2007 saw the completion of the first stage of our goal to provide world class teaching and performance facilities. The New Music Centre has transformed the lives of our young musicians and teaching staff and we shall be forever grateful to the many friends and benefactors whose generosity brought the project to life.

The challenge now is to ensure that no musically gifted child is barred access to the School through lack of suitable boarding accommodation.

The School has launched its Opening doors to the future New Boarding Accommodation Appeal to raise the £3.8m needed to meet the cost of the new building.

Mindful at all times that the School’s greatest asset is its musically gifted children, it is necessary for the Development team to raise over £500,000 each year for the Scholarship Fund (which supplements the bursaries awarded under the government's Music and Dance Scheme) and also any additional income that is required to meet the cost of other of the School’s activities that require funding.

Bursaries and scholarships
Central to the School’s philosophy is that any child should be able to accept an offer of a place, irrespective of its family’s financial circumstances. Many pupils, ineligible for Government Aided Scholarships, are only able to take up an offer because of help from the Scholarship Fund.

Music projects and outreach
Every year the school’s programme of musical activity includes special projects in areas such as music technology, composition, recording, performances and increasing outreach work. The School has a long-standing commitment to the composition and performance of new music. None of this innovative work would be possible without additional funding.