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Making Music Exams Work for You

on Dec 8, 2019

As far back as I can remember, I have always sung. As a child, I sang because I simply couldn’t help it. It nourished me, elated me and grounded me. I sang as others speak, dance, run or write. As a teenager and then an adult, I kept on singing, eventually becoming a professional opera singer. Today I am also a mother and a singing teacher. The combination of these roles has led to my appointment as resident dinner party expert on all things music. Parents who approach me have all have the same burning question: when should their child start his/her formal music education? My answer often startles them: much later than you think. Most professional musician friends of mine who also teach children share the same view. Many argue that before the age of 4-5 is too young. While many of us may harbour the hope that they’re raising the next Mozart, the reality is that music geniuses are...

EQ vs IQ – How to nurture a child’s Emotional Intelligence

on Sep 28, 2017

One of the greatest gifts a parent can give a child is to help them become ‘emotionally articulate,’ i.e. able to recognise, express and manage their own feelings. This is a skill developed over time, as the terrible twos –when tantrums are often caused by a child’s frustration at not being understood or listened to—give way to increasingly mature and reasoned behavior around the age of 3 and 4, when the 4+ assessments for entry into selective independent schools take place. As a mother of four, I have been through this developmental stage with my own children several times. I know first hand they won’t have all reached the same level of emotional maturity at that age and may thus react very differently to meeting new people in an unknown setting where they will be expected to follow instructions and rules. As a former teacher who used to conduct 4+ assessments at a top prep school, I...

Talking Heads: Mr. Faber of Summer Fields

on May 4, 2017

Summer Fields is a full-boarding and day boys’ preparatory school in the heart of Oxford. David Faber, Headmaster since 2010, discusses his transition from the world of politics to teaching, and shares his insights into educating boys. In this interview he reveals how, having celebrated the school’s 150th anniversary, he is making plans for Summer Fields’ future. Could you tell me about your own career? What led you to transition to a career in education? After leaving Oxford I was elected as an MP in 1992, but at the 2001 election I decided that I was young enough to try my hand at something else. After writing two books on 20th century history, I was invited to lecture in a number of public schools. In many ways, I wished that this is what I had started out doing twenty years ago. You have a strong personal connection to Summer Fields, both as a former pupil and a parent. How does...

Schools – Where to Start?

on Jan 9, 2017

This article was commissioned to Magus Education  by ParentVille. We republish it with their permission. This is how it goes. You pee on a stick. Small hurrah. You bite your nails for the next 12 weeks before sharing the news. Toast. Sorry, mocktail for you. Flash- forward a few weeks — you have yet to hit check out on that flattering maternity dress in your Seraphine basket — when it starts. A whisper from a colleague here, a flash of panic across a well-meaning friend’s face there, a schools’ special in Parents magazine. The chorus of voices becomes deafeningly loud, the same question repeats again and again: have you put your unborn child’s name down for nurseries? Schools? Universities? You laugh it off at first; they can’t be serious. But they are. And soon you laugh no more, because the whisper has built to a terrifying roar of third-hand horror stories along tales of creepy...

4+ : Our tips for the day

on Jan 4, 2017

Christmas trees, stripped of their shiny ornaments, are shedding their last needles onto the pavements. Night falls fast and early. Fresh Moleskine diaries are bursting with New Year resolutions. That can only mean one thing:  4+ assessments are coming right up. And while three-year olds up and down the country, still mesmerised by their Christmas haul, are blissfully unaware of what is about to happen, the same cannot be said about their parents. Behind a serene front, many will have spent the holidays fretting that their child is not quite “ready,” or worrying that the mid-nap slot they have been allotted will harm their chances. And who can blame them? The process of letting anyone “assess” the character and academic potential of one’s child is daunting. Even more so when you factor in that it all happens in an allocated 45-minute timeslot, amid strangers, in a completely new...