It's the end of term! Merry Christmas from everyone at ELAM

It may be the last week of term but ELAM trainees have still been making the most of every opportunity as always!  After the excitement of last week’s tour of Universal Music’s Engine room, Games Design trainees kept up the momentum with a trip to ELAM partner, Sports Interactive, the company behind the highly successful Football Manager game, where they were given a tour of the games studio.  Trainees got the opportunity to speak to many staff in a range of positions to gain a better understanding of the different roles that exist in a games studio.  Following the tour, trainees were set a micro one day brief where they were required to come up with an idea for a mini game that could take place within Football Manager, followed by a pitch to the staff.  All trainees impressed the team enormously with their creativity and pitching skills.  


Meanwhile, on Wednesday  we invited A&Rs from independent record labels to come down to ELAM and watch some of our  talent from Years 12 and 13.  Rappers, producers, bands and solo performers all got the opportunity to showcase their work.


We also began to get into the festive spirit as we enjoyed a traditional Christmas lunch lovingly prepared by our wonderful Nicola and Georgina in the canteen. 


We concluded the week and celebrated the end of term with our Values Award ceremony which saw trainees recognised for demonstrating and embodying our ELAM values of Collaboration, Reflection, Resilience, Independence, Dependability and Inquisitiveness across the term.  Well done to all the winners.


And there was more success for our alumni as fresh off the stage at U Music, our beloved Stella and Renee from Flo were special guests on the Graham Norton show where they stunned with another amazing performance.


Wishing everyone who celebrates a wonderful Christmas and new year and a much needed break for all.  We’ll be back in January with more news and updates.  Happy Christmas everyone!


Welcome to the ELAM blog!

Welcome to our brand new ELAM blog.  Every Friday you can expect all of our news and updates about what has been happening at ELAM.  We hope you enjoy it!


The past two weeks have been all about industry at ELAM.  We were fortunate enough to be invited to take part in our founding partner, Universal Music Group’s brand new Amplify U programme.  Amplify U is a pilot scheme which brought together young people from across 5 organisations, ELAM, Brit School, Small Green Shoots, Limitless and Cat’s Mother for two weeks of incredible work experience.  40 of our Music and Film and Television trainees have spent the past two weeks working across five departments on live industry briefs as well as having talks from external industry leaders including a full day session with Stevie Wonder’s manager!  They also spent a day at iconic London venue Roundhouse where they were treated to an industry panel and Q&A exploring how to produce a live event - they heard from industry leaders from WME, The Royal Albert Hall, Precise Live and Roundhouse.  The day culminated in an exclusive invite to U Music, Universal’s annual celebration and Christmas party.  The highlight was a live performance from the one and only Flo where we saw our two beloved music alumni, Stella and Renee, absolutely dazzling with their performance.  And the work experience wasn’t just for film and music trainees.  The whole of Year 13 games trainees joined them last Friday for an exclusive tour of The Engine Room, Universal’s internal creative studio where they were given a live brief and will return next year to have their work reviewed by the team.  The two weeks culminated in a celebration event where ELAM rapper N3 and alumni Norika performed.


In other news, this week we are so proud of our music alumni Layyah, who after seriously impressing all of the judges for the past six weeks was crowned the winner of BBC’s Rap Game and impressively is the first female winner of the show.  Huge congratulations Layyah.  She follows in the footsteps of music alumni Ruben, J Clarke who was also a finalist on the show two seasons ago.


Finally, on Wednesday we also hosted our annual careers carousel event for current trainees wishing to explore career options available to them post-ELAM.  The event welcomed over 14 universities and higher education providers, industry professionals from many of our partners including Ridley Scott Associates, Universal Music Group and Sports Interactive, and ASK Apprenticeship Service.  What a week!