As ELAM marks its 10th anniversary, founder Will Kennard of Chase & Status has spoken about its positive impact and his ambitions for expansion.
Based in Tower Hamlets, East London Arts & Music provides trainees with a free, two-year specialist education in music, games design or film & television studies.
“It’s a big year for us,” said Kennard. “It’s been a pretty immense journey from the concept of this school, rallying support from the industry, the stakeholders and the government, and then finding young people and getting the name out there.”
The sixth-form college has rapidly become a success story in creative arts education.
“I’m massively proud,” said Kennard. “We’ve had two Ofsted inspections, which have both been the highest rating you can get. It’s just one marker that we’re doing a great job in terms of teaching, safeguarding and the way the school is run.”
Alumni include members of FLO, Nia Smith, Tendai, Girli, Sekou and Chrissi with past students signed to Warner, Island, Polydor, RCA, 0207 Def Jam and AWAL. Kennard said it is also becoming a tried and tested vocational route for young people.
“A lot of them come to us wanting to be superstars and our job is to nurture that, absolutely, but also show that there’s a massive world out there of fantastic careers,” he said. “We’re utterly driven by this industry experience – our tagline is the ‘Industry Academy’.”
Kennard has combined his work with ELAM alongside chart-topping success and busy touring commitments with Chase & Status.
“They feed into each other – it inspires me,” he said. “We put a lot of time and effort into being inspired by young music, new culture and a lot of that comes from my time at ELAM. It’s a bit of a balancing act. But for me, it’s part of the secret to our success and I’m grateful for that.”
Ethan Holt was recruited by Chase & Status from the college to record and perform live with the duo.
Ten years on from the launch, it’s common for Kennard to encounter ex-students in the industry.
“I’m going from events to festivals to studios to all sorts of different environments, and bumping into ELAM alumni,” he said. “It happens time and time again, whether it’s a management company, a label, a publishing company or a venue. That really is powerful for me.”
He now wants to expand the opportunities for young people.
“It’s my ambition to replicate what we’ve done in ELAM in other parts of the country,” said Kennard.
Key to that is the formation of the Day One Trust, through which ELAM is connected with the London Screen Academy.
“We have the same vision; one is film and one is essentially music, but it’s the creative industries,” said Kennard. “There’s so much crossover, more than ever, and I just think about how can we expand that offering? Two schools in London is not enough. Let’s talk about taking this further afield. Let’s take it up North, that is the big drive for us.”
ELAM has had conversations with other schools about providing curriculum support in the creative arts. But the main ambition is to launch further colleges outside of the capital.
The “big challenge” is for Day One to now become a Multi-Academy Trust (MAT).
“We have a model now that is transferable. That MAT model exists elsewhere with 50-plus schools. There isn’t one in creative education and there should be.”
The college was set up to address the fact that “schools don’t teach creative subjects in a vocational way very well”.
“We have this philosophy with ELAM – it’s a place of work and you’re expected to behave like that,” Kennard told Music Week. “That’s the experience you’ll get and that’s what we drill from day one.”
ELAM aims to provide a pathway into the creative industry for under-represented communities. When it was being established, Kennard met with business leaders to discuss issues around accessibility and diversity.
“They all agreed it wasn’t diverse enough and wasn’t reflective of London,” he said. “I think you see companies and organisations have changed their focus and are aware of it, but there’s a lot more work to do, really.”
Kennard said the concern with creative arts learning in the UK is that “kids from more privileged backgrounds with a better support system” are at an advantage, when compared to peers in the state sector who aren’t attending institutions like ELAM and the BRIT School.
Kennard credited the support of the music business, including founding partners Universal Music. Universal’s Abbey Road Studios recently hosted an anniversary celebration.
“We’re determined that kids coming to ELAM are getting the best of the best,” he said. “[But] we need more help, particularly from the wider music industry. ”
Kennard said the industry has already seen the benefits from recruiting ELAM trainees.
“I hope that will prove that the funding model and the support is beneficial,” he said. “I really think ELAM is changing the creative industries for the better.”
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