Sophie’s fellow Game of Thrones actress Gemma Whelan (who plays wise, loveable Kate alongside David Mitchell’s Shakespeare in BBC1’s Upstart Crow) and Poldark’s Ellise Chappell also had performance foundations laid at King’s. Recent Old Girls are currently studying at RADA, LAMDA and the National Centre for Circus Skills, and King’s High pupils have enjoyed private tours of RADA and LAMDA, through the school’s King’s Links programme, where former pupils show current pupils around their place of study.  

Last year, 183 girls sat LAMDA exams, and all passed with Distinctions and Merits. Performance – in Music, Dance, Acting – starts young, from Year 7 producing Plays in a Day, and acting in junior productions, to joint productions with King’s High’s brother school in the Warwick Independent Schools Foundation, Warwick School. Recent productions include a dazzling Narnia, with some mesmerising puppetry, and a performance of Oliver!, where the off-stage live band, comprising Warwick and King’s musicians, were so good, the audience thought they were listening to a West End recording!   

This summer, the schools celebrated 10 years of joint productions with a run of Les Misérables, Schools Edition. Pupils enjoyed a masterclass from theatrical royalty, when they rehearsed with John Caird, Co-Director, with Trevor Nunn, of the original Les Misérables. John read from his original directing notes, and gave the cast invaluable insight into their characters. Pupils have access to professional theatre spaces, with Warwick town’s Bridge House Theatre, and Warwick Hall.

A new, state-of-the-art King’s High school building is rising fast, with the Warwick Independent Schools Foundation’s  Project ‘One Campus’, which sees  King’s High moving to a new site alongside Warwick School and Warwick Preparatory School in 2019. Shared Drama facilities will include two amazing new studios, with sprung floor, a ‘black box’ mini-theatre, mirrors and dance bar. 

King’s High’s performance students enjoy some wonderful opportunities beyond school. In recent weeks, girls have been out, treading the boards – singing for the Birmingham Royal Ballet’s The Nutcracker, dancing and acting with local theatre groups and pantomimes, and performing with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford.  Harriet Kelleher, who started at King’s last September, was a memorable Ghost of Christmas Future, haunting Phil Davis’s conscience as Scrooge in the RSC’s A Christmas Carol. She said, “I have always loved acting, so to be able to perform on stage at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre was a dream! My teachers have been so supportive with my dream of becoming an actress and continuing with my studies.”

Headmaster, Richard Nicholson said, “I am delighted to misquote Noel Coward – ‘The Master’ himself – and say: ‘Do put your daughter on the stage’, because King’s High drama is flourishing at school and beyond, from Stratford, to RADA and Hollywood.” 

For further info visit kingshighwarwick.co.uk

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The Russia trip saw 32 girls arrive in Moscow with the first winter snow. They explored St Basil’s and the Kremlin, filed past Lenin’s embalmed body, rode the Moscow Metro, and marvelled at the brutalist architecture of Socialist Realism, before taking the overnight train to St Petersburg, where they saw Lenin’s coded instruction for the assassination of the Tsar and his family.   

King’s High runs over 25 residential trips each year, with destinations ranging from China and Costa Rica, to India and the USA. Numbers range from 20–60 pupils, and many trips are run jointly with boys from Warwick School, King’s High’s brother school in the Warwick Independent Schools Foundation. In the course of a school year, King’s girls may be found riding horses and penning cattle in Arizona, donning crampons and climbing glaciers, consulting the Oracle in ancient Delphi, copying paintings in Venice and Florence, bicycling through Amsterdam, snowboarding in North America, doing drama workshops with the Broadway cast from Wicked, or teaching schoolchildren in India. 

Alongside such adventures, girls say it is the opportunities for some deep thinking that remain with them, long after they have returned to school. Regular experiences include walking through trench systems at Passchendaele, visiting German and Commonwealth cemeteries, and laying wreaths at the Menin Gate; walking around Berlin, Munich and Nuremburg, tracing the Nazi rise to power, and hearing first-hand accounts from former Stasi prisoners. 

While every school trip has an academic focus – whether it is art, classics, geography fieldwork or language homestays – it is the new experiences, new friendships and new opportunities pupils relish. There is also a vibrant programme of local trips – encompassing theatre, art, music, sciences, geography, history, maths, archaeology, politics – and it is a rare week that does not see girls heading out from King’s. 

School trips are highly popular, but trips are not taken for granted at King’s High.  Typically, most pupils will take around four trips in their school career, and girls and parents often negotiate between them, as to which will be their chosen ‘Big One.’  

The jewel in the crown, for all King’s girls, is the Sixth Form trip to India. King’s High has a longstanding relationship with Dundlod School in Rajasthan. Girls raise funds for the Doorstep School for hearing-impaired children in Dundlod, through a series of events, including a themed dinner they organise for parents and staff. The two-week trip combines a week of sightseeing in Delhi, Agra and Jaipur, and a week teaching in the school. Girls teach classes of up to 50 children, and love it. Each year, they say the same thing: “That was the highlight of my time at King’s.” 

For more on King’s High, visit kingshighwarwick.co.uk 

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