Music

Music Development Plan 2024-25

Music has been a lifelong passion for me. With over 25 years of experience teaching music, with mentoring and confidence-building being a big focus.

I am also a professional backing singer and author of a children's book. I've had the privilege of working with some incredible artists and experiencing the power of music firsthand.

Music has helped me to overcome many challenges and work with my disability, which has stregthened my passion for sharing music with others. I love helping children to develop their own muscial journey, encouraging them to explore different styles and genres of music where the joy of making music and appreciating music lie.

At Hillbrook, we believe that music should be accessible to all children. Whether coming from a musical family with formal music experience, or being completely new to the subject, music-making can be an enriching and vital part of children’s education and their life as a whole.

Music enriches people’s lives in many ways: discovering the music that they love listening to, building confidence in their abilities to express themselves, and gaining the focus and discipline required to achieve mastery of a subject. In the process of making music with others, we connect with our creativity and emotional vulnerability and sharing this with others is hugely rewarding.

We believe that all children can appreciate and make great music. All children have the opportunity to sing, play a wide variety of un-tuned and tuned instruments and use music technology to play and compose music on their own and with others. We equip children with all the skills to do this, whether they initially believe they can do it or not. We learn music by making it, and through this achieve understanding of the knowledge and skills underlying it. We give children opportunities to push their music learning as far as they want to take it - extra-curricular opportunities give children the chance to join musical ensembles and to take individual music lessons. By showing that everyone can just pick up an instrument, sing and make music, we hope that music goes on to be a part of every child’s life beyond school too. Some may continue appreciating and listening to music, others may make music informally with their friends, some may go on to musical careers, but all our children will have music in their lives.

Listen to some of out work by visiting our bandcamp page here

Below are some videos of projects that we have worked on.