Happy New Year and welcome to a new term at ELAM! We are back and excited to dive into the new term with many exciting things to look forward to over the coming weeks.
We kicked off the year with some great news, celebrating the success of some of our early entry GCSE resit trainees last Thursday! Exams are daunting already but it can be even more so to take one early and we were so proud of everyone who sat them and showed real courage and commitment. So many trainees were incredibly close to passing and will undoubtedly thrive when they resit in the summer but we are happy to announce that five trainees passed Maths, two trainees passed English and we want to give a special mention to the three trainees made two grades of progress since last summer and the six trainees who made one grade of progress - keep up the great work!
Our first Future Focus Wednesday of the year took place this week and we welcomed back to ELAM, music alumni Salmah Dixon for an A&R masterclass. Salmah successfully gained a job at EMI Records after completing her ELAM Universal work experience in 2022 where she made such an incredible impression on her team that they hired her as soon as she graduated from ELAM. After finishing her role at Universal before moving on to Tape London where she now works. Salmah gave feedback from an A&R perspective to a selection of tracks submitted by music trainees and her insight was invaluable.
We also welcomed some of our partners from Ridley Scott Associates who joined us onsite to give feedback to the Year 13 Film and TV trainees on the pre-production of their Branded Content projects. It was great to see how impressed the team were with the work of our trainees and they will continue to mentor them, coming in for two further feedback visits later in the term.
The Year 13 Games Design trainees were back at Universal Music HQ today to get industry feedback on the briefs that they were set during the work experience programme that took place before Christmas. The team at Universal were incredibly impressed with each and every trainee, not only by their standard of work but also their ability to present the intricacies and functionality of the work that they had completed for the brief. Well done to everyone involved.
Huge congratulations are in order for two of our amazing Music alumni Grace Oluokun and Elise McQueen who were invited to perform at a prestigious event on Wednesday evening celebrating the UK release of the highly anticipated Bob Dylan film, A Complete Unknown, starring Timothée Chalamet. The event took place at the iconic Gibson Garage in central London and featured performances by emerging artists for an exclusive audience of industry professionals, influencers, and special guests—just a day after the film’s premiere! Grace and Elise were each invited to sing two Bob Dylan songs and they left the audience absolutely mesmerised with their breathtaking performances, earning glowing praise from attendees throughout the evening. A massive well done to both for representing ELAM and showcasing your incredible talent.
We also want to say a big thank you to Music alumni and KWN who was interviewed on BBC Radio 1Xtra this week and gave a special shout out to ELAM and its role in her progression as an artist, proudly stating, “they are an incredible, incredible college”. KWN is absolutely smashing it on the music scene right now with her own releases as well as multiple features on the tracks of global superstars including Kehlani, who she will be supporting at her London show at the end of this month. Big love KWN!
In other industry news, the start of term saw the launch of ELAM's annual mentoring programme which kicked off this month and will continue until May 2025. Our mentor programme has been running since we opened in 2014 and is one of the most transformative experiences for our trainees, with many of the mentor relationships leading to further opportunities beyond the programme. We received 60 applications from trainees and mentors, all hailing from the Music, Games and Film industries and we are so excited to watch the incredible work that will take place over the next 4 months!