Louisa and the Being Musical associate team specialise in 3 areas supporting excellence in performing arts teaching:

• Teaching Initial Teacher Training (ITT) and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) including EYFS, primary class school practitioners, community musicians and those delivering vocal and whole class ensemble tuition (WCET).
• Singing Vocal development and musicianship training for educators facilitating music lessons and WCET.
• Classroom Management Everything to do with organising the teaching space to get the best possible learning outcomes (including promoting relational practice techniques).

About Louisa

Louisa tells us about her journey in education and what inspired her to set up Being Musical…

I originally went into primary teaching because I wanted to help children to learn. I also thought it might be fun. You know what? It really was and I loved it.

Studying primary education at Leeds Becketts I was lucky to be taught by two legends of music education… John Pitts (of his Recorder Method Book with CD fame) and the incredible Jan Holdstock – who taught me how to break down learning in Early Years music to teeny tiny steps. She also helped me to learn that everything is possible in learning and in life. Like me, she also had rheumatoid arthritis.  

I taught Year 1 in my NQT year and then, almost immediately, the school made me a ‘Music Co-ordinator’. Next stop, I moved from the countryside in Lancashire to that there London. I’d discovered that I was missing urban schools and that I was happiest when I was working in schools in challenging circumstances.

Things started moving quickly from then on. I joined Sing for Pleasure to learn all about choral direction and then travelled to Japan to research primary music in schools with a Churchill Fellowship. On my return, I came across the Voices Foundation, started mentoring primary teachers and began studying Kodály in my spare time. 

I became an Advanced Skills Teacher (AST) in Music then Area Leader for London and the Thames Valley with Trinity College London and the Open University on their DCSF funded KS2 Music CPD Programme. In those days KS2 instrumental work was known as ‘Wider Opportunities’. Sometimes it’s called ‘First Access’ and its now more commonly known as Whole Class Instrumental Tuition (WCET). Basically, it’s when everyone in the primary class learns an instrument all at the same time. It can be noisy. It can be messy, but it’s fun and exciting and an incredibly powerful way to learn how to start playing an instrument.  

With the changes in UK governance, and the close of the programme, I returned to primary school roles, gaining my NPQSL with UCL in 2014 and moved to Assistant Headship whilst supporting schools in the Tri-borough Music Hub in London. Between 2017 and 2021, I was Global Head of Learning for Stagecoach Performing Arts and it was the learnings through the pandemic, particularly our move from face-to-face to online CPD, that has enabled me to share my knowledge and skills in teaching more widely through digital platforms.  In 2023, I returned to the Tri-borough Music Hub in London as Schools and Curriculum Leader, now supporting primary and secondary schools in the City of Westminster, Hammersmith and Fulham and Kensington and Chelsea.

My work with Being Musical allows me to share the good bits (and the not so good bits) that I’ve learnt over the years to enable teachers and performing artists to be even more effective and discover new and different ways of inspiring learners.