BIRMINGHAM ORMISTON ACADEMY Competitors

Birmingham City University is dedicated to transforming the prospects of our learners, inspiring them to become makers and doers. We are an integral part of the city in which we are based, with courses shaped by the needs of industry and partnerships with some of the country's leading employers. The University focuses on practice-led, knowledge-based learning, providing access to cutting-edge facilities and real-world experience. We benefit from around 50 professional accreditations and have a well-established reputation for delivering in-company training and development programmes. Our teaching staff come from and maintain their links with industry, ensuring you are given an insight into the latest thinking. We are constantly looking for new ways to enhance the learning experience, with inspiring visiting lecturers and learning environments that are designed to replicate the workplaces you aim to enter. We even give you the chance to gain work experience in real roles around the University, through our student employment scheme. The work undertaken by our research staff and research students is not only enriching our courses, it is literally shaping the world. In the Research Excellence Framework 2014, which measures universities’ research performance, 90% of Birmingham City University’s total submission was judged to have delivered ‘outstanding’ or ‘very considerable’ impact externally. We have been pioneering vocational education in the city since 1843, through a series of predecessor institutions. Having achieved University status in 1992, we changed our name to Birmingham City University in 2007, reflecting our commitment to, and pride in, our home city.

Birmingham Royal Ballet is one of the world's leading touring ballet companies. We inspire and move people worldwide. We create and perform full-scale classical ballets alongside compelling and relevant contemporary work. Our impact beyond the stage has a profound social impact. We want to inspire, engage, entertain and educate audiences, and are committed to reaching the widest possible audience regardless of age or social status. We have up to 60 permanent dancers and our own outstanding orchestra, the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, which ensures we have some of the best orchestral music in the UK. We are also home to The Jerwood Centre; a world-class facility for the prevention and treatment of dance Injuries.

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) is an internationally celebrated symphony orchestra, at home in Birmingham. A family of incredible musicians, led by Music Director Kazuki Yamada, proud to make exciting musical experiences that matter to the people of Birmingham, the West Midlands and beyond. Resident at Symphony Hall, the orchestra’s musicians perform over 150 concerts each year in Birmingham, the UK and around the world, with music that ranges from classics to contemporary, soundtracks to symphonies, and everything in between. With a far-reaching community and education programme, a ground-breaking partnership with Shireland Collegiate Academy Trust, and a family of choruses and youth ensembles, it is involved in every aspect of music-making in the Midlands – and has been for more than 100 years. This longstanding tradition started with the orchestra’s very first symphonic concert in 1920 – conducted by Sir Edward Elgar. Ever since then, through war, recessions, social change and civic renewal, the CBSO has been proudly ‘Birmingham’s orchestra’. Under principal conductors including Adrian Boult, George Weldon, Andrzej Panufnik and Louis Frémaux, the CBSO won an artistic reputation that spread far beyond the Midlands. But it was when it discovered the young British conductor Simon Rattle in 1980 that the CBSO became internationally famous – and showed how the arts can help give a new sense of direction to a whole city. Rattle’s successors, Sakari Oramo, Andris Nelsons and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, helped cement that global reputation and continued to build on the CBSO’s tradition of flying the flag for Birmingham. Under the dynamic leadership of Music Director Kazuki Yamada and Chief Executive Emma Stenning, the orchestra continues to celebrate the joy of music and of Birmingham through creating unmissable and unforgettable musical experiences for all. The CBSO is supported by its principal funders Arts Council England and SCC.