The Northern School of Art has been at the heart of creative learning in the North East for more than 150 years. Its story is one of resilience, reinvention and a long-standing commitment to specialist art and design education. It began in 1870, when the Middlesbrough School of Art opened on Durham Street, one of the earliest centres for art education in the region. Four years later, in 1874, the Government School of Art was founded in Hartlepool, opening in the Athenaeum on Church Street to provide local students with opportunities in visual arts, design and craft. In 1897, the Hartlepool school moved to the top floor of Lauder Street Technical College, where it remained until 1939, when it relocated to the vacated Church Square School. The West Hartlepool College of Art remained there until the building was destroyed by fire in 1966. A new College of Art and Design opened on the same Church Square site in 1968, where it continues to operate today. Over the following decades both schools grew and adapted to the changing needs of the towns they served. In Middlesbrough, a purpose-built facility opened on Green Lane in 1960, officially inaugurated by Robin Darwin, Principal of the Royal College of Art at the time. This building became a lively centre for creative study until the School moved to a new town centre campus in 2021. In 1979, the Middlesbrough and Hartlepool art schools merged to form Cleveland College of Art and Design, carrying forward a shared mission to deliver creative education grounded in hands-on making, experimentation and support for emerging talent. In 2018, the College adopted the name The Northern School of Art following a statutory review recognising its specialist status. This change acknowledged the school’s heritage, its position as one of the UK’s few remaining independent specialist art and design institutions, and its role as a leading creative education provider in the North of England. Hartlepool and Middlesbrough have changed dramatically over the past 140 years, but one thing has remained constant: the presence and importance of their art institutions. The resilience and adaptability demonstrated throughout the School’s history is now instilled in every learner, guiding students from their first days as scholars to confident creative professionals. Today, the School is unique in the North East as a centre dedicated entirely to specialist creative education, serving learners from further and higher education through to postgraduate and professional development courses. It has achieved national recognition for teaching quality, including Gold in the Teaching Excellence Framework and Outstanding grades in consecutive Ofsted inspections, demonstrating the lasting quality of education and student experience.