Dr Who Star Pearl Mackie Opens New School Building

Students and staff were thrilled to welcome Pearl Mackie to open our amazing new Lansdowne School building. Pearl is best known for playing Bill Potts, the companion for Dr Who. She is a local Brixton actress who is proud of her South London background.

Many of the pupils are big Dr Who fans, so Pearl was the ideal person to help us celebrate the opening of the new building. She was very impressed with the facilities that she found!

Pearl was able to see at first hand our purpose built new site. It includes fourteen specially designed classrooms along with facilities such as a food tech space, art studios and sensory spaces. This has allowed an expansion in student numbers.

The special day started with a personal welcome for our special guest by the Head Girl and Head Boy. A bouquet of flowers was presented.

Pearl was then introduced to the Lansdowne School Councillors. Each class representative had a personal greeting. This was a great way for Pearl to understand a little more about our unique school community.

A tour of the new building then followed. Pearl particularly enjoyed sampling the cupcakes that were baked for her in our food tech space. The art exhibition was another highlight of the tour.

Our new school building has allowed Lansdowne to offer a sixth form facility. A selection of the Year 12 students were excited about the Q&A session that they had with the international actress.

Some tough questioning followed. Pearl explained perfectly why it is so important to finally have a female playing the lead Dr Who role. Some cards were exchanged displaying Dr Who inspired artwork.

It was then time for the official formality of opening our brilliant new school building. All pupils, staff and visitors gathered in the school hall.

We were especially grateful to be able to welcome Cathy Twist, the Director of Education at Lambeth Council, and Cllr Jane Edbrooke, the Cabinet Member for Children and Schools.

The Lansdowne School Choir showcased their singing and signing talents. This was a great warm up ahead of Pearl’s speech:

“It’s been absolutely incredible to see what you guys do here and the amazing things you do in all your classrooms. But standing up here in front of you makes me a little bit nervous. It reminded me of my first day at school, and also my first day on Dr Who!”


A series of presentations took place. Pearl handed over certificates for pupils achieving in art, work experience, college training, raising money in the community and the City and Guilds qualification in Employability skills.

Executive Headteacher Mrs Adams then addressed the gathering:

“It’s been quite a journey. It seems appropriate that Pearl is our guest of honour to officially open our new school today as it’s felt like we’d got into the TARDIS and moved from one time zone to another when we moved from the old Lansdowne building into this fabulous new school.

I wanted a building in which our students could thrive. They deserve the best of facilities and that is what we have tried to provide.”

Lansdowne School was officially open – it was time for the fun and celebrations!

All our school community headed outside for a celebratory BBQ. It was great to welcome our old friend Uzo the Grill Master. The late autumn weather was very kind to us on our special day.

The new Lansdowne School building has been made possible with help from the Education Funding Agency and Lambeth Council. Our school will continue to grow as we are now able to offer more places for pupils with special education needs.

We would like to thank Pearl for very kindly giving up her time to offer something back to her local community. We were very happy to also welcome the local Cllr’s and Officers from Lambeth Council.

Plus it was fantastic to see such strong support from parents. Thank you for your patience over the past couple of years during the construction of our new school.

Welcome to the new Lansdowne School!

You can view some snapshot galleries of the construction phase below.

May 14 2016

May 1 2016

March 13 2016

January 21 2016

November 23 2015

October 16 2015

October 9 2015

September 4 2015

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *