Co-curricular life

Pupils at Emanuel benefit from a rich variety of activities beyond the classroom, led by enthusiastic and talented professional coaches and staff.

Friendships, passions and opportunities for leadership all come through being part of a team, a society, or a club. At Emanuel, every pupil is encouraged to take full advantage of the broad co-curricular opportunities. Pupils develop life-long skills and interests outside of their academic subjects. This balance not only broadens horizons, but also has important benefits for wellbeing and mental health.

Sport

We have a thriving sports programme at Emanuel, offering the opportunity to play competitive sports, participate in development sports, improve personal fitness, boost mental wellbeing and develop specific skills. Being part of a team is central to our sporting ethos.

The quality of coaching is excellent at all levels. We run over 900 inter-school fixtures across a year and we compete very favourably against our co-educational rivals in London.

Pupils benefit from the school’s excellent onsite and offsite sporting facilities. On the main site at Battersea Rise, there are 12 acres of playing fields for rugby, football and cricket, a 25m swimming pool, netball courts, a large sports hall with multi-lane cricket wickets, a strength and conditioning gym, an aerobic suite, a dance studio, a mini-astro, a climbing wall and tennis courts. Emanuel School has one of the top boathouses on the Thames, located at Barnes Bridge.

Further offsite sports facilities are located 20 minutes away, just off the A3 in Raynes Park. There we have a 14-acre site for hockey, tennis, netball, cricket, football and rugby.

Sport at Emanuel

Our aim is to provide a range of supplementary sports and activities. These are delivered within the co-curricular clubs and games programme and they help us to support the athletic development of our pupils. Pupils in sports participate in inter-school competitions.

Our aim is to provide opportunities for our talented sports players to excel and to achieve representative honours where possible. We also wish for all pupils to have access to excellent coaching and facilities; to provide competitive inter-school fixtures, helping them grow in their sport and understand the importance and value of competitive sport.

Athletics Cross Country

Table Tennis Swimming

Water Polo Football (girls)

Cricket Rowing (boys & girls) (boys & girls)

Hockey Netball (girls) (girls)

Rugby Football (boys) (boys)

A range of additional sports which ensure all pupils participate in some sporting activity, learning the value of regular exercise for health, friendship and challenge.

Co-curricular clubs:

Climbing, dance and tennis.

Senior Games Programme: Includes over 20 activities, including co-ed yoga, squash, pilates, spinning, croquet and racketball.

Health and fitness, wellbeing and character development

Meet the Team

Miss Smith Director of Sport Director of Hockey and

Mr White Director of Cricket Director of Rowing

Miss Fitzgibbon Teacher of PE Athletic Development

Pupil Profiles

Diego (Year 9)

Since joining the school in Year 7, Diego has been a key member of the school football team, as well as playing rugby and cricket.

Outside of school, he plays football for West Ham United Youth Academy, an achievement he and the school are very

Pupil Profiles

Prudie (Year 11)

Prudie is one of our sport and music scholars and is keenly involved in many different areas of co-curricular life at Emanuel. This year, she has represented the school in the hockey and netball teams, and performed in the school musical,

She is also a member of the symphony orchestra and the senior strings. Outside of school, she plays football for AFC Wimbledon and is a member of the England Independent Schools Football team.

Drama is at the heart of Emanuel’s vibrant co-curriculum.

With seven productions a year covering all year groups, including a whole school musical and two companies that perform at the Edinburgh Fringe, Emanuel pupils have an extraordinary range of opportunities available to them. In total, this year, over 300 pupils have been involved in school productions.

There are 10 different clubs a week covering tech and costume as well as performance skills. Every week, we welcome pupils from local primaries who take part in five-week mask workshops led by our Lower Sixth pupils.

A number of pupils, past and present, act in commercial projects on stage and in film, including Vanity Fair, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Apple Tree House, Informer, Paw Patrol, Rosie Plays Julie, Matilda and many more productions.

The Drama department is housed in the Fiennes Theatre; a fully equipped, purpose-built performance space with an audience capacity of 120. We also have our own film studio and a larger performance space, the Hampden Hall, which has a capacity of 400 and is used for major productions.

We are extremely proud of our co-curricular provision in Drama. Each student has a wide range of opportunities to explore theatre in different forms and styles, led by our experienced and passionate staff. We aim to instill a love of theatre, both on and off stage, powered by challenge and collaboration.

Drama

Independent School of the Year for The Performing Arts 2022

Pupil Profiles

Kit (Year 8)

Kit joined Emanuel in Year 6 as a Drama scholar and enjoys being a member of Drama club. Outside of school, Kit has had a busy and exciting year! He did the campaign for Sky Glass TV, voiced a new character for Paw Patrol, filmed his first role in a period drama for ITV and got to play Helen Mirren’s grandson in the new movie, Golda. Kit has many other exciting projects in the pipeline!

Kit is also involved in a range of other clubs and societies at Emanuel, from house tug-o-war to Maths enrichment!

Meet the Team

Mr Burgess Director of Drama

Miss Gu Theatre Technician

Mrs Graves Head of Co-curricular Drama

Miss Fearnley Teacher of Drama

Miss Kerstein Theatre and Events Manager

Mr Norton-Smith Director in Residence

Music at Emanuel is exciting, diverse, and unique. The school has an extraordinarily strong musical tradition with a thriving classical and contemporary provision.

Pupils have the opportunity to be involved in rock bands, chamber ensembles, jazz ensembles, guitar groups, percussion groups and DJing, and have the chance to perform regularly in school and outside too. We aim to stretch and challenge the elite musicians in the school but also support and provide lots of opportunities for those at different stages of their musical journey.

The first major concert of the year is ‘Showstoppers!’ for all Year 6 and 7. We also take our musicians down the road to the Half Moon in Putney to perform a rock gig, the Ministry of Sound or XOYO for a club night featuring our DJs, the Clapham Grand for ‘A Night at the Musicals’ concert and St Luke’s Church for our annual carol service.

2023 will see the school perform a concert at St John’s Smith Square to celebrate Emanuel’s 430th year.

Music

Hundreds of pupils are involved in ensemble music-making at the school, including choirs, orchestras, rock bands and jazz groups. They are taught by members of the academic music team and some of our visiting music teachers who are all professionals working throughout the UK and abroad. Pupils have exciting opportunities to perform in venues in London.

Performances & Ensembles

Performances

Showstoppers!

St Cecilia’s Concert

A Night at the Movies

A Night at the Musicals

Ministry of Sound DJ Event

Music Production Workshops

Meet the Team

We also have a team of 26 visiting music teachers who offer lessons in a wide range of instruments

Mr Janz Director of Music

Mrs Heather Teacher of Music

Ms Cleobury Assistant Director of Music

Mr Stevens Composer in Residence

Miss Dee Teacher of Music

Emilia (Year 10)

Pupil Profiles

Emilia joined Emanuel in Year 6 as a Music scholar and has thoroughly enjoyed all the opportunities for her to develop her passion in this subject. Emilia plays the harp and sings, and is involved in a number of different groups and choirs during the week. She is currently working towards her Grade 8 harp and Grade 6 singing exams. Outside of school, Emilia has entered many music festivals and is a member of the NYHO (National Youth Harp Orchestra) playing with lots of other harpists from around the country.

Emilia is also keenly involved in other co-curricular activities and enjoys being a part of the school rowing team.

Clubs & Societies

Advanced French Breakfast Club

Advanced German Breakfast Club

Ancient Greek Club

Animation Club

AQA Further Mathematics

Athena Society

Board Game Club

Harry Potter Club

Hill Form/ Year 7 Enrichment

Judt Group

Junior Art Club

Junior Book Club

Junior Debating Society

Junior History Society

Athena Society

Gardening Club

Chess Club

Duke of Edinburgh

The Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme is immensely popular at Emanuel with 95% of Year 9 pupils taking the Bronze award and 70% of Year 10 pupils going on to take the Silver award.

Pupils relish the opportunity to develop skills, volunteer in the local community and throw themselves into the expedition.

Emanuel Expo

Emanuel’s super-curricular initiative: Emanuel Expo – is a programme of presentations from different academic departments on Tuesday lunch times, aimed at giving pupils opportunities to be inspired by intellectual ideas beyond the scope of lessons. They are run by departments and have so far included outside speakers, pupil presentations, and practical activities.

Highlights have included OE architect, Laurence Dudeney, sharing with over 50 pupils a snapshot of his work at Foster Associates and Zaha Hadid and Heatherwick Studio talking through projects that included the 2012 Olympic Torch, The Vessel in Manhattan, and Coal Drops Yard near King’s Cross. The Biology and Chemistry departments combined to put on a forensics challenge, ‘Who killed the Headmaster?’

Emanuel Houses

There are eight houses at Emanuel that run vertically from Year 6 to the Upper Sixth.

Within each house there are two house captains, one senior captain in Upper Sixth and another in Year 9. In addition, there are four vice-captains in each house, two from the Upper Sixth and two more from Year 9. They act as representatives for the house as role models, to assist with the organisation of house activities and events, and to feedback useful suggestions and improvements to their head of house.

There are a wide range of competitions, examples include: rugby, swimming, cross country, tug-owar, netball, chess, music, art, photography and Rubik’s cube. Each house victory gains points for the house which feeds into the annual inter house competition.

Each house supports an individual charity and throughout the year fundraising events are run to raise funds. At the end of the year, the house charity Cup is awarded to the house which has raised the greatest amount of money for their chosen charity.

Pupils can gain colours based upon their commitment and involvement in house life and activities; pupils value these as an expression of their commitment and effort to their house.

Battersea Rise

London SW11 1HS

Tel: 020 8870 4171

Email: admissions@emanuel.org.uk

Instagram: emanuel.school

Twitter: @emanuel_school

www.emanuel.org.uk