Community-Building
For a number of years now we have made it our aim to build an intentional community amongst our students and their families, mainly through our programme of Workshops and Concerts, which provide gathering points throughout the year.
Since pooling our resources and becoming the Milsom School, we have been able to expand this vision to encompass a small, but growing community of teachers, as well as learners. The potential benefits of this are already coming to fruition, as we share our teaching and life experiences.
Instrumental teaching can be, but need not be a lonely profession. Likewise, learning an instrument can be an unnecessarily solitary pursuit. We hope that our community will offer opportunities to teachers and pupils that otherwise cannot easily be found.
Staff Selection Criteria
There are a number of essential qualities we look for in an instrumental teacher:
- Post-Grade 8 playing ability on main instrument
- Keyboard skills (enough to accompany early grades)
- Open-mindedness and willingness to adapt teaching style to each student
- Broad knowledge and understanding of music history
- Appropriate and up-to-date understanding of musical style and interpretation
- Willingness to participate in Workshops and Concerts
- Ability to work as part of a team and learn from other teachers' experiences
- Personality that will motivate and enthuse young learners
- A holistic attitude (willingness and ability to give more than just instrumental tuition)
Support and Training
As you can see from our selection criteria, qualifications and teaching experience are not of primary importance since we offer training and advice to all our assistant staff. We also make it a priority to meet once or twice each half term to discuss our successes and problems in teaching - these sessions are relaxed and informal and useful to all of us, no matter how many years we have been teaching! There is always insight to be gained from a discussion of a colleague's hands-on experience.