Serenity's Opera House experience

Each year, over 2,000 young disadvantaged students visit the Opera House through our Arts Assist program, made possible only by our generous donors. Through our Arts Assist program, our donors provide the full cost of a Creative Learning performance ticket and a portion of travel costs for select schools. Schools are assessed according to socioeconomic disadvantage, schools with special needs and individual responses, ensuring the program targets schools and students who otherwise wouldn’t have such an invaluable experience available to them.

The Creative Learning program is linked to the school curriculum and connected to in-class activities before and after each students’ Opera House visit, so the experience has lasting impact. Students at these schools, like Serenity and her classmates, are young members of our community living with social and financial disadvantage and come from wonderfully diverse backgrounds including from Aboriginal, non-English speaking, migrant, and refugee families.

Thanks to our donors, 23,000 students like Serenity from 125 disadvantaged schools across greater Sydney and regional NSW like Lethbridge Park Public School have had an Opera House experience that they couldn’t otherwise afford. Students are able to visit the iconic Opera House, experience the transformative power of the performing arts and deepen the impact of lessons learnt back in the classroom. For these students, a visit to the Opera House means a world of possibilities beyond the classroom and daily life is uncovered, launching them into the exciting unknown.