

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.
“Their success in extracurricular activities is extremely strong.”
ISI Report 2023
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 neighbours.
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.
Mr Lavery
Director of Sport
Ms Low
Assistant Director of Sport
Mr Leigh
Director of Football
Mr Macdonald
Director of Hockey
Mr White
Director of Cricket
Mr Moon
Director of Rowing
Mr Ross
Director of Rugby
Mr Beeley
Assistant Head of Rowing
Mr King
Head of Athletics and Cross Country
Our range of additional sports which support the athletic development of pupils. We aim to offer competitive opportunities against other schools in all of these sports.
Tom is one of our sports scholars who represents the schools A teams in rugby, football and cricket. Highlights from his Emanuel careers so far include competing at the Roslyn Park sevens tournament and scoring a hattrick of tries live on You Tube! Playing in goal and keep 4 clean sheets and scoring 8 centuries for school.
Tom became the youngest player in the school’s recent history to play for the boys 1stXI. He made his debut in the school’s annual fixture against the MCC in June 2024.Tom also plays for Middlesex as part of development programme. As a scholar, he is supported by a staff mentor from the sports department and receives additional coaching from our Mr White, head of cricket, and Mr London, cricket professional, both of whom have had careers playing county cricket.
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, Once.
She is also a member of the symphony orchestra and the senior strings. Outside of school, she plays football for Fulham FC 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 ages, 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.
Mr Burgess
The Drama department is housed in the Fiennes Theatre; a fully equipped, purposebuilt 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.
“Pupils spoke at length about the transformative
Harry joined Emanuel in Year 7 as a Drama scholar and has been an active member of the performing arts community ever since. He played Captain Hook in his Year 7 play ‘Wendy and Peter’ and this year was cast as the role of Chip in our celebrated whole school musical ‘Beauty and the Beast’.
Harry got to perform at the National School Theatre Awards, with our cast being nominated for several awards including ‘Best Musical’ and he is very excited to have been cast in ‘Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street’ next year.
Harry is also a keen sportsman and plays Rugby, as well as participating in the rowing team.
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 choirs, orchestras, rock bands, chamber ensembles, jazz ensembles, percussion groups and DJing, and have the chance to perform regularly in school and in external venues. We nurture both the elite musicians in the school and also support and provide a myriad 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, XOYO or Fabric 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 saw the school perform a concert at St John’s Smith Square to celebrate Emanuel’s 430th year.
Hundreds of pupils are involved in ensemble music-making at the school, and each group enjoys at least one performance opportunity a term. 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.
Performances
Showstoppers!
St Cecilia’s Concert
A Night at the Movies
A Night at the Musicals
DJ Event
Music Production Workshops
House Music Competitions
Rock Bands at Half Moon, Putney
Evensong at St Paul’s Cathedral
Carol Services
Classical Musician of the Year
Ensembles
Intermediate Strings
Senior Strings
Rock Bands
Intermediate Jazz
Senior Jazz
Emanuel Singers
Schola Cantorum
Intermediate Concert Band
Senior Concert Band
Roar!
Composition Club
Music Production Club
Percussion Ensemble
“Music integral to the curriculum, with extensive repertoire
from DJing to rap via more traditional choral and classical.”
THE GOOD SCHOOLS GUIDE
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 cocurricular activities and enjoys being a part of the school rowing team.
Advanced French Breakfast Club
Advanced German Breakfast Club
Ancient Greek Club
Animation Club
AQA Further Mathematics
Athena Society
Board Game Club
Chaplain’s Discussion Group
Harry Potter Club
Hill Form/ Year 7 Enrichment
Judt Group
Junior Art Club
Junior Book Club
Junior Debating Society
Junior History Society
Law Society
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.
2023/2024
40 bronze awards
70 silver awards
2500 volunteering hours
3000 physical hours
2500 skill hours
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?’
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 020 8870 4171
community@emanuel.org.uk
Instagram: emanuel.school
Twitter: @emanuel_school
www.emanuel.org.uk