Our History
2001 - 2015
BlueWhale started life as a recording studio founded by our Director Ben Hayes back in 2001. We were originally based at the Custard Factory in Digbeth, Birmingham and it was on the 4th floor of the old Birds building that Ben built BlueWhale Studios. The studio quickly became popular with local musicians including bands, singer songwriters and rappers who were inspired to record and practice in the relaxed and creative atmosphere at the Whale.
At the start of the noughties, music technology was in its infancy and from contacts made through the studio, we started to receive requests from a number of local schools and community youth groups to deliver music technology, DJ and production workshops. Word spread rapidly and as the programmes became more popular, delivery and training soon became our main focus.
In 2007 Birmingham City Council contacted us and asked if we would be prepared to offer an Alternate Provision to the cities young people who were not in mainstream education. We saw this as an opportunity to expand BlueWhale Studios and formed BlueWhale Training and in the early days, we only delivered Music Technology based provision to the learners we worked with. As the years passed and technology became more advanced and accessible we began to expand our offer and started to teach other forms of creative digital media.
From its inception, Ben has worked tirelessly to develop the programmes we are able to offer, which has enabled our team to work with even more young people in Birmingham and beyond. Our ethos was, and remains to this day, solely centred around our students. It was during this time that we started to deliver programmes in graphic design and video production amongst others.
2015 - 2022
In 2015, BlueWhale moved to Granville Street, just behind The Mailbox in Birmingham City Centre which remains our location to this day. Having our own building has given us much more freedom and space and allowed us to work with larger groups of students and increase the programmes we are able to offer. 2018 onwards saw a dramatic increase in the needs of the number of young people that were referred on our programmes. As a result of this we adapted are teaching processes and practices and began to build a reputation of engaging students with a vast range of SEN, enabling them to achieve with despite struggling in alternate education settings.
2023 and beyond
It's now 7 years since we moved our Granville Street home and since the pandemic we've implemented a complete rebuild of BlueWhale in preparation for our 'next chapter'. The learners we work remain the focus of BlueWhale and we do all we can to ensure they engage and develop new skills during their time on programmes. As a private training organisation, we are entirely self financed with any profit generated from the provision being continually reinvested into the business.
After a tricky couple of years, it's thanks to the vision and skillset of our rapidly expanding team that we are now in a stronger position than ever before. BlueWhale remains the positive and creative place it always has been and our team remain determined to support as many young people as possible to further their educations and improve their futures.