Select a region
Twenty years ago, the Princess Royal Centre for Performing Arts was being planned as part of a much wider education campus but as no other building work has ever taken place it now stands alone as a "centre of excellence" alongside a derelict building.
It was news to me that the PRCPA doesn't have bathroom facilities upstairs, and that one of its walls was always intended to be temporary - because that is the side that is intended to one day link up with the rest of The Guernsey Institute campus at Les Ozouets, if it is ever built, with additional facilities such as those bathrooms being built into the rest of the plans.
It's well known that the development of the planned campus at Les Ozouets is in limbo with College of Further Education students spread across the Delancey and Les Coutanchez sites after moving out of the old St Peter Port School last year so it could be demolished.
The Sixth Form Centre remains around the corner at Les Varendes High School and is likely to move to La Mare de Carteret before any new facilities are built.
The performing arts students - an average of 20 per year - are carrying on as normal in their much more high spec building, with every student achieving a university offer last year.
The difference between the facilities for the performing arts students and those studying subjects including health and beauty, child care, IT, catering and any number of apprenticeships was laid bare by comments made in an Ofsted inspection.
Pictured: The Good results achieved by the College of FE at its inspection last month.
Ofsted does not judge educational facilities on their buildings, however it was noted that students and apprentices at the Coutanchez and Delancey campuses are studying in "ageing and poor-quality accommodation" while those based at the Performing Arts Centre at Les Ozouets "benefit from studying in high quality dance studios and a theatre".
Ofsted said that some students’ teaching and learning experiences are restricted because of the closure of essential teaching rooms at the older locations.
It did also highlight that lecturers employ effective teaching methods, using real-world scenarios to encourage discussion and debate, resulting in students acquiring more sophisticated skills over time but the poor quality of their learning environment was apparent during the inspection.
Pictured: Students and staff at the Performing Arts Centre celebrating their 'good' inspection results from Ofsted. As well as 20 students enrolled on its courses, the facility is used by numerous public and private organisations such as the Music Service, drama groups, dance teachers, and many more.
During our interview, both Jackie Hughes; the Executive Principal of The Guernsey institute, and Oliver Davies; Artistic Director and Programme Lead at the Performing Arts Centre, described it as a "centre of excellence", and one would be hard to disagree with them.
Prior to 2006 there was no provision for performing arts within the curriculum at the College of FE.
Talks had been ongoing around developing a course with the decision made in the early 00s to build a new theatre on the site of the then-St Peter Port School which was closing.
The Performing Arts Centre opened to students in 2006 and was officially christened The Princess Royal Centre for Performing Arts when Her Royal Highness Princess Anne visited the following year.
When the Performing Arts Centre was being built it was always intended to be part of a larger campus offering many more courses with the entire wall on the left hand side as you enter the building described as "temporary". That wall is still intended to be the joining line between the theatre building and the rest of the campus, if it ever gets built.
Pictured: The former St Peter Port Secondary School, latterly The Guernsey Institute campus, now a boarded up shell.
St Peter Port Secondary School closed in 2009 with news reports from 2011 describing the States decision to invest millions in the buildings to allow the College of FE to move in.
Mr Davies moved to the island in 2010 and following employment elsewhere within the College of FE he took on a role at the Performing Arts Centre in 2013, before being promoted to Artistic Director in early 2020.
At that time the expectation was that the wider campus development was nearing fruition.
In 2022, following numerous debates, the States had agreed to demolish the former school, and build an entirely new campus on the site.
The College staff and pupils moved out - and then RG Falla went bust days before demolition was due to begin, and the States have rescinded previously agreed financing for the project as the constriction costs have increased.
Les Ozouets Campus is now effectively mothballed with its windows boarded up, security patrols to prevent vandalism and no confirmation of when the building work might start.
As Mr Davies explained, the current performing arts curriculum only exists because of the creation of this centre.
Previously students had options at A - Levels but nothing like they currently have. The cohort might seem small, but arguably it's mighty, Mr Davies said.
"On average here, it's about 20 (students) per year every year that we have across a range of three levels. So it's a small but mighty course. 100% of our young people get offers to universities and drama schools in the UK if they want to go, the majority of which do go off island, and some stay on island, go into education, childcare, we have people that go into youth work, we have a police officer who trained here, engineers, lots of different skillsets."
Pictured: Jackie Hughes; the Executive Principal of The Guernsey institute, and Oliver Davies; Artistic Director and Programme Lead at the Performing Arts Centre.
Mr Davies said the performing arts resonates well with HR professionals who often speak to staff and students at the Performing Arts Centre.
"...they want to recruit more of our performing arts students because they are confident, outgoing, good public speakers, they're lateral thinkers, they're problem solvers, they're the kind of people that will always say yes and then solve the problem away from the client.
"I have a lot of conversations with parents about backups, and that's always been the argument (studying) A Levels and vocational courses, that we need backups but for me, the backup is already in the course because you get so many transferable skills and you learn such a broad range of things within the course."
Reiterating that over the past few years 100% of students have left the Performing Arts Centre to further training elsewhere in the creative field, Mr Davies said the college is really seeing the long term impact of the investment it made in this facility nearly 20 years ago.
"I think it's been 100% of our students have gone off to training and we're just starting to see kind of the long term impact of that - they go away, train for another three years and then they'll do a few years doing the small jobs and then they start breaking into the bigger stuff.
"Currently we've got Harry Giubileo who's in Cratchit who's come back to the island. He's just come out of a six month West End production, and we've got Rhys Ashcroft who was performing in the West End as Daddy Pig (from Peppa Pig), which is one of my favourite facts...and he's set up a theater company on island with Dan Le Friec called Freaky Geese. He's doing some lecturing work with us again so it's really fun at the moment with him, which is really lovely.
"Seeing somebody you knew 10 years ago as a student come back and be the person that's now standing in the room with authority, and to watch the students responding to his really current knowledge is amazing to see."
The number of alumni now making their names known in the performing arts sector is clearly growing as Mr Davies continues reeling off names and show titles.
"It's amazing and we're starting to have conversations around alumni being able to talk about and promote their experiences."
Pictured: Numerous in-house and public performances are staged at the Princess Royal Centre for Performing Arts throughout the year.
"We've got Tom Mahy currently in the West End in Dear England with the National Theatre which we're about to screen here. I know it's maybe not revolutionary to think, but little old Guernsey is producing these people that are in the West End.
"It's huge and considering before that, there was nobody doing it because the building wasn't here to train them, and whilst we train the performers we train the industry too. We teach them how to become business people. As a self employed performer you run your own business, you run your own accounts, you're doing the marketing, you have to know everything, and the qualification we run is called University Arts London which is a really brilliant broad qualification that whatever you're interested in, you can push that as your main focus."
As well as the average of 20 performing arts students each academic year using the facility, Mr Davies said that thousands of other people also use it. That includes for private performances, public shows and live streamings of national performances. It is also hired out by the corporate sector and used by the States for meetings or presentations where useful.
The excitement, passion and drive to succeed is palpable at the Performing Arts Centre, but there's no escaping the fact that as we sit in the foyer discussing the success of students who have passed through these doors there is a derelict building just feet away.
Mr Davies insists that he and his staff do not let that affect their students.
"We're not hampered because we've always been that way, with it next to us," he said simply.
If the rest of the college campus were developed as intended, there would be carpenters, decorators, hairdressers and caterers on site to help with the work that goes into preparing for and staging each performance.
That happens but with interaction co-ordinated between three college sites rather than on one.
Pictured: The derelict former St Peter Port Secondary School is directly next door to the Princess Royal Centre for Performing Arts.
"As much as we can we'll reach out and connect, but it absolutely would be so much easier and more effective if we were all on one site and also able to work across all the departments."
Ms Hughes said that was the aim when she took on her role as Executive Principal nearly five years ago and she is still determined to see it happen.
"Our idea is about project led learning," she explained. "It's not just about classrooms, we wanted to create flexible spaces so that people can work together because that's how life is and we are training people for employment at the end of the day.
"We want to provide industry standard environments that our learners can learn in and develop and grow together.
"We were fairly devastated a year ago when we knew that that wasn't quite going to happen. The plans are still sound because we designed it to be suitable for the next 50 years so I've no worries that the designs are now a year old, I just need to source the funding to be able to make that happen."
Mrs Hughes is hopeful that the changes within the make up of the States, and a new Policy and Resources President at the helm, could benefit The Guernsey Institute's plans.
"I currently feel confident. I think there's a real will to see the Guernsey Institute built. What we know is that in the States, they have given broad support to the new transforming education model. The issue was about where's the money coming from? And I recognise that there is no money tree, but we are in a position particularly for the College where the deterioration of the campuses is faster than the repairs that can be made.
"Our facilities for the College part of The Guernsey Institute are really poor and we've got to do something about that."
Pictured: Director of Education, Nick Hynes and President of the Committee for Education, Sport and Culture, Deputy Andrea Dudley-Owen.
Speaking to Express just days after the Ofsted inspection report was released, Ms Hughes said "we were absolutely delighted" with it.
"...eight Good grades across the board is really fabulous," she said. "But even in the Ofsted report, they reflected upon the fact that the campus is not meeting 21st century needs and in offline conversations they were saying that this does not look like you need in industry.
"When they went into workshops, when they went into hairdressing salon, it doesn't look like the industry environment that our learners will go to and yet they recognised here in the Performing Arts Centre that this is a really great part of our facility."
Ms Hughes works across all of the campuses affiliated with The Guernsey Institute as well as at Sir Charles Frossard House.
Whenever she arrives at the Princess Royal Centre for Performing Arts she said she feels frustrated.
"...frustrated because actually that building's got worse over the last 18 months that it's been empty. We've had a lot scallywags came onto the campus and they've done a considerable amount of damage."
If the situation were to arise where the old St Peter Port School would have to be repurposed once again for further education students, Ms Hughes estimated it would cost around £4million to get it ready. Education is also forking out money for 24 hour security to stop the break-ins from happening.
"It's boarded up but people were going up and over it. It was frustrating, and then we have floods and the car park floods. It's just perpetual.
"It's really difficult trying to maintain this as a focus point with that on our doorstep and, one of our problems is that if we host events, we hold them here and then we might get politicians or other stakeholders coming in going, 'oh, it's not so bad, this is fine'."
Ms Hughes said despite the PRCPA building being in fine fettle the outside environment has a clear impact on guests' perceptions.
"...we want to attract people to come and see shows and yet if you are arriving in the dark and and you've got an uneven car park that's full of water and a derelict building next to you it doesn't really encourage people to come back."
Mr Davies used the same word to describe his feelings when he sees the rotting building next door to his workplace.
"...when you see the adjacent building it's a frustration and disappointment because we were so close...almost this time last year, we were having conversations and we knew there would be significant work that needed to happen to the centre to make it safe for this to be a building site."
Pictured: Jackie Hughes; the Executive Principal of The Guernsey institute, and Oliver Davies; Artistic Director and Programme Lead at the Performing Arts Centre.
"We had planned how we were going to build a massive firewall in the theatre, how we were going to change the entrance, what we'd need to do for the students, what we needed to do for our clients, what we needed to do to work with the music service who use us every week.
"And then every time you just sit there going 'oh, nope, still not'. And it gets worse and worse every year and the disappointment is great."
Ms Hughes is confident she will see the new Guernsey Institute campus built at Les Ozouets.
"We will have to go back out to tender for the demolition. That's the first thing that will happen and then we look at commencing the build," she said.
"If, when I wake up on Christmas morning, there's £111 million in my Christmas stocking and we can just get on and do it, we'd still be looking at three years before we open as a brand new campus. It is going to be complicated having the Performing Arts Centre open throughout, we think there will probably be what we've referred to in the trade as 'a dark period' of three months perhaps, but of course, we don't know when that will be because we don't know when we can start, but mostly it will be business as usual here."
She added, "we can adapt and we can make anything work, but we just need to know a plan, a timeline and what's happening when so that we can make the necessary changes to the operating model for the the centre.
"In the same way, performing arts students studying here have a taste of the real world as it is now in soon to be 2024 and this is reflective of a theatre, if you go to the other parts of the campus, whether it's the art studios, the early years, or construction - students are learning.
"It is not reflective (of their surroundings) and that's the advantage that our performing arts students have and it shows because their destinations are amazing."
GOOD...despute the "ageing and poor-quality accommodation"
ESC president attempts to re-prioritise the Transforming Education Programme
ESC sitting 'quietly' before deciding its next move
ESC Policy Letter gets “extensive mauling”
Comments
Comments on this story express the views of the commentator only, not Bailiwick Publishing. We are unable to guarantee the accuracy of any of those comments.