You say pirouette, I say breakdance

The Royal Ballet School and a comprehensive in London's East End might not have much in common, but a passion for dance has brought the two together. Could their partnership be the start of a new trend? Caronline Haydon reports

You can drive from the Royal Ballet School in White Lodge, Richmond, to Brampton Manor School in Newham in two hours. West to east the journey takes you from the leafy confines of Richmond Park, where the ballet school nestles among leafy green trees and where well-heeled families exit en masse on bicycles when the weather is fine, right across London and out the other side to East Ham, where Brampton Manor does its nestling alongside the A13 flyover to Barking.

Newham is one of the most deprived boroughs in London. Near the heart of the old docklands, Brampton Manor inherits many of the problems thrown up by the surrounding poverty.

But walking in, you are met with a couple of surprises. The modern buildings might still be a building site, but the courtyards are being elegantly landscaped – in one case into a map of the world, though the banana tree planted in Africa died during the winter. And, hidden away on the ground floor, there is a bright new dance studio with a special black floor and a ballet barre done up in bubble wrap and waiting to be installed.

If you express any surprise about the popularity of classical ballet in a comprehensive school, you are given a friendly ticking off about stereotyping from the head, Neil Berry. If you're a teenager, he says, being a good dancer is very cool. The kids who dance at Brampton Manor – whether they choose classical or street dance – gain high status.

It was Berry's belief in the quality of dance in the school and what he thought it could do for his pupils that led him, over a year ago, to make the phone call that started a unique partnership between Brampton Manor and the most prestigious ballet school in the country.

After an Ofsted report had highlighted the quality of dance teaching, Neil Berry decided to trawl the inspectorate's website for an independent school "that did dance well" to link up in an independent-and-state-school partnership.

As luck would have it, the Royal Ballet School had just received an Ofsted report as well, and was second on the list. "So I clicked it, read the inspection, and thought, this is a bit cheeky, but I'll try. I phoned up the then-principal and said, we're a school in the East End of London, we offer very good dance, and we're anxious to get even better – would you care to work with us?"

The Royal Ballet School promised to get back to him after the summer holidays. And, rather to his surprise , they did. So began a series of visits and workshops that have continued for a year now and have just been funded for another two.

What makes them so special is that the Royal Ballet School is not just giving master classes at Brampton Manor. This is a genuine partnership that culminated in a joint performance last week in London, and that has inspired both sides.

Talking to the Brampton students after rehearsal, you can sense the excitement. No teen ennui here – these pupils are keen as mustard, and anxious to say what impressed them most about the visits they'd made to White Lodge and to the Royal Ballet's upper school in Covent Garden.

What stunned them was the discipline. The ballet school boarders took curriculum lessons as well as ballet. The head of dance at Brampton, Joelle Goodwin, describes the reaction of some of her pupils after one visit. "They were very surprised. They couldn't believe the level of dedication," she says. "We looked round the boarding quarters and one boy asked where the TV was. There wasn't one".

But what really elated the children, she adds, was the excitement about the Brampton performances. Her pupils wanted to know how the ballet students managed pirouettes and the entrechat; the classical dancers wanted to know how the Brampton dancers did back flips and street dance.

The Royal Ballet's head of outreach, Jacqui Dumont, agrees about the rapport. Ballet-school pupils really wanted to join in a joint workshop at White Lodge. "I was expecting just a small group but they flocked in," she says.

The fact that the two groups managed to bridge the apparent chasm comes as no surprise to the adults involved. Dance-mad kids can form a bond of their own. And (more ticking off for stereotyping here, this time from the other side) the Royal Ballet School is not just for students whose parents can afford full fees. Ninety-two per cent of the pupils are funded by the Department for Education and Skills on a sliding scale according to income – so it is, as the department points out, open to anybody with the necessary talent.

The school already runs an extended associate programme in which it helps teachers across the country identify and work with talented dancers, providing support as well as more traditional events and masterclasses. But this is the first time it has struck up such a special relationship with a school, and Jacqui Dumont hopes to build on that in time. She knows she can reach more children who are talented but lack opportunity through schools than through dance classes – a few of the girls at Brampton had been given private lessons, but not many. And none of the boys had taken the Billy Elliot route, until they grabbed this chance.

Now, watching assured boys from years 7 and 8 going through their routines with the older girls (some of whom are taking dance GCSE), you can tell they feel very good about what they are doing. A spirited rendition of East Side Story, their own version of West Side Story with local characters, displays good use of drama as well as showcasing some excellent dancing.

"We've got kids in this school who are so talented. All they need is the opportunity," says Neil Berry. "And this link with the Royal Ballet School is going to give them the opportunity either to be a discerning member of an audience or to pick up the skills to enable them to dance to a higher standard. In all probability it won't be to Royal Ballet School standard, but certainly they will be able to express themselves in movement in an enhanced way."

Of course, what everybody really hopes is that someone will make it – several Royal Ballet stars have climbed to the top of the ladder of the associate programme, and it's a viable route for Joelle Goodwin's pupils, too. One reason, then, for the new barre, and a future increase in emphasis on classical dance at Brampton. A former professional dancer herself, Joelle recognises that street dancing has its attractions. But as an enthusiastic teacher who sweats through the routines with the kids, she knows that classical dance is the foundation of contemporary style.

Attitude counts as well, says Jacqui Dumont. "If you have to be so disciplined with your own body, it does transfer into school skills," she says. Neil Berry agrees, pointing out that top sports players are often top students as well. "If you are dedicated and focused and you take those skills into the classroom, you are going to do well," he says.

This sort of partnership could well be a way forward with other schools, suggests Patricia Ambrose, the executive secretary of the Standing Conference of Principals, the representative body for specialist institutions in the creative arts. "With concerns that the National Curriculum does not allow enough time for these things – that it has sidelined the creative arts at both primary and secondary level – the ways in which specialist schools interact with schools around them will be important in widening participation," she says.

The Royal Ballet is a small school and it lives by its reputation, so what it does do it must do well, and future activities are constrained by a need for control, says Jacqui Dumont.

But it looks on the Brampton Manor experiment as a real success, and it has taken the lesson in partnership to heart. When you feel the infectious enthusiasm of the cast of East Side Story, and see some undoubted talent, you sense that a very useful seed has been sown.

education@independent.co.uk