Teens tread the boards rather than tap their phones

The cliche of mumbling youngsters unable to communicate with grown-ups because they spend all their time glued to their mobile phones, computers and games consoles is something that Ella Sankey is familiar with.

"A lot of my generation do lack confidence," says the 19-year-old, from the St George's area of Telford.

"Maybe they don't mix with people of different ages the way we do here."

'Here' is The Arts Centre Telford – or Tact as it is usually known – a performing arts school based at the former Ketley Infants School in Holyhead Road. It was formed in 2011 by schoolteacher Ross Doodson.

It recently put on a sell-out production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's hit musical Cats at Oakengates Theatre featuring a 107-strong cast, and the production was so successful it had to add an extra date to cope with demand for tickets. A significant number of its pupils have also gone on to enjoy careers in performing arts.

But Ross, who is a teacher at Brownhills School, near Walsall, says the benefits can be much more wide-ranging.

"Employers love performing arts students," he says.

"They know they are going to get somebody who is confident and creative and able to deal with the public."

The school also places great emphasis on discipline, says Ross, an approach which has served its pupils well.

"We're known as the 'pushy school', or 'the serious school', because we insist on high standards, and that suits us fine," he says.

Tact's alumni includes Barney Wilkinson, who went on to study musical theatre at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and recently formed part of the UK tour of Sunset Boulevard, singer Fraser Callaghan who has performed in a number of hit musicals, and Aimee Fisher who has appeared in the West End production of Wicked.

Ross, who is 31, says for a generation of youngsters who have grown up with mobile phones in their hands, there are obvious challenges in getting young people to focus.

"It's a chronic problem," he says. "We have got this generation that has grown up in an age of instant gratification.

"Whereas previously you would have to have worked at something, you had to develop a skill, everything now is at the touch of a button.

"Part of what we do here is getting back to that firm focus on discipline, teaching and learning, and making sure everything is to a high standard."

He says television programmes such as Pop Idol, X Factor and Britain's Got Talent do not help, either, giving people an unrealistic view of what careers in the performing arts are about.

"The reality television idyll is that if you can sing along to a backing track, that's great, but that's really not how it works in real life," says Ross.

"It's a really difficult industry, and that kind of karaoke approach to performing arts isn't really helpful.

"They are not going to come here and wear a T-shirt saying 'I love music', and they are not going to be given a microphone, but what they are going to be involved in team work, and the are taught that if they do want careers as performers, they are going to have to work really hard for them."

Perhaps surprisingly, Ross says he has little difficulty in motivating youngsters to give up their free time to learn about stage craft.

"When we started we had about 40 students, we have now got 400," he says. "We do have some adults, but they are predominantly youngsters. There is no problem at all getting them to come in on a Saturday morning or after school, they don't see it as another school day," he says.

Ella, who joined Tact five years ago, has moved one step closer to a career as a performer after securing a place at Urdang Academy in Islington. But she says it is not just on the stage that she has seen her skills develop. She also has a part-time job working as a sales assistant at the Clinique concession at Debenhams in Telford, and says her experience with Tact helps her in dealing with the public.

"It has helped me in the big wide world, when I first went for job interviews I was much more confident," she says.

"I can find myself dealing with quite a lot of people.

"The thing is here I am in contact with people of a lot of different age groups, there are people who are younger than me and people who are older than me.

"I have grown in confidence in quite a short space of time."

Jack Powell, now 18, has been with Tact since the beginning, and now also has his sights set on a stage career.

"When I first came here, I didn't really think it would be a career, I didn't think it was what people really did," says Jack, who is studying for A-levels in English Language and Performing Arts at Thomas Telford School.

"It was only when I saw people from here going off to stage school that I thought it was a possibility."

Jack, who live in The Rock area of Telford, says he tried a number of different hobbies before joining Tact, but this was the first thing he really persisted with.

"I have got a lot of really good people skills from doing things like this," he says.

"It's made me good at communication, which is useful for most things. I have got lots of friends of all ages who are all interested in this sort of thing."

The centre now employs 14 teachers and seven support staff, the majority being either professional performers or teachers.

Ross cites the story of a boy he refers to only as "Jamie" as being an example of how taking up acting, singing or dancing can transform a youngster's life.

"He joined us when he was 13, and was finding school very difficult," says Ross. "He was always arguing with people.

"We helped make him a much more well-rounded young man. Over several years of hard work he developed a lot of confidence and social skills to the extent that he is now off to university to study performing arts.

"That is something we would not have expected."