Ed Sheeran hails 'future festival headliners' as Access Creative College opens Whitechapel campus

"It just gave me so much freedom to be creative in London and have a base to meet like-minded people I hadn’t really known before," said Ed Sheeran in a message for his former college at the opening of its new east London campus.

On Thursday (November 9), Access Creative College (ACC) celebrated the launch of its Whitechapel campus in Commercial Road.

Among the guests were alumni including Let’s Eat Grandma and Beth McCartney, as well as Bethnal Green and Bow MP Rushanara Ali, ACC chairman Jo Johnson and guest of honour Angela Rayner MP, deputy leader of the Labour Party.

The college specialises in creative education across music, esports, media and computing. It has more than 5,000 students at campuses in Birmingham, Bristol, Lincoln, Manchester, Norwich, Plymouth and London.

Musicians to have passed through its doors include FLO, Jess Glynne, Nova Twins, Rita Ora and Ed Sheeran, who took the artist development programme at the former London campus in 2007/08.

In a video message for the launch, Sheeran said: “I went to Access College in Bromley by Bow when I was 17 and 18, and it just gave me so much freedom to be creative in London and have a base to meet like-minded people I hadn’t really known before. A lot of the time you go to school and you’re made to feel you have to grow up and get a proper job and what Access does is it gives you a safety net of trying something before you go out into the big wide world. I found it so helpful and I hope you enjoy going there. I’m sure there are people there that are going to be headlining festivals in 10 years' time.”

Rayner told the audience: “You are our hope for the future, you are the voices of future generations. You’re going to light up people’s lives and give them a sense of direction.”

Access Creative College London interview

Nathan Loughran, director of campus at Access Creative College London, said: “I think it's really amazing. We've got these spaces that are very innovative for teaching and learning. And I think, to put that into context, we're living in a world where a lot of our young people have had two years of working from home due to Covid - growing up, they haven't been used to learning in a classroom environment.

"They've grown up always having the internet, often having phones attached to their hand, being able to Google things or learn anything they want from YouTube, because there's so much material out there.

"We have to really think about how we engage those students. They have to know that they're going to get something here that they can't get on the internet, they can't get from home."

Facilities include a recording studio control room where students can put into practice what they have learnt in the adjacent classroom, just through a window. Similarly, a green screen room and a photography studio are part of the teaching environment, providing a professional setting.

Another big innovation for this kind of college is the inclusion of esports.

Loughran said: "Esports, even a couple of years ago, seemed crazy - the idea that we're teaching people to play competitive gaming. Well, we have a great facility for it. It allows us to live stream those games into different spaces so there can be a real competitive element."

Those skills can then be developed in a "professionally mirrored environment".

Loughran is from a musical background and, perhaps surprisingly for the head of a state-of-the-art facility, picks an iconic indie band as his music heroes.

"I'm a massive Pavement fan," he said. "And that kind of lo-fi (low fidelity) '90s rock is big to me. I'm also a big fan of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, and those songwriters. But that's a personal thing.

"What's wonderful about this environment is that both staff and students have a passion for so many different kinds of music - different things that they are open to sharing. I think what's wonderful is that people bring these different influences into it."

To apply for a course, visit the Access Creative College website.