Imagination is the source of every form of human achievement. And it's the one thing that I believe we are systematically jeopardizing in the way we educate our children and ourselves.
Sir Ken Robinson - British educationalist and campaigner for creativity in education
Asta#Plays in Education
Delivering Music Education and Teacher Training
Guidance for Professionals - Music Education Consultancy
🎵 INSET sessions for music specialist and generalist staff
🎵 Dalcroze taster sessions
🎵 Musical storytelling workshops
🎵 Facilitating meaningful musical play
🎵 School events management and logistics
*Face to face bespoke training and consultancy, or online sessions are available. Send a request.
Early Years Musical Provision
🎵 For babies, toddlers, young children and families
🎵 Nurseries, pre-schools, kindergartens
🎵 Community venues
Through holistic, age-appropriate sessions, Asta#Plays gives children a confident first experience of music while supporting musicality, social skills, and wellbeing.
Book for Take Part at Salisbury Arts Centre (coming soon)
Book for A#P @TheFriary (coming soon)
Contact me for introducing sessions to your nursery setting
Extra-curricular Activities
🎵 After school or lunchtime clubs
🎵 Choirs
🎵 Musical productions
🎵 String ensembles, bands, and orchestras
🎵 Drumming circles
*Have you also considered how an extra-curricular musical activity may benefit your staff body? Contribute towards the mental health and general wellbeing of staff, and enhance cooperation and cohesion between colleagues by getting in touch today.
SEMH
All children, but especially those with social, emotional and mental health needs, can benefit from taking part in the Drumbeatable programme. Alternatively, get in touch to discuss the therapeutic, cathartic, and behaviour regulation use of music in the classroom and school community.
*Drumbeatable were nominated for Music and Drama Expo 2026 Excellence in SEND category
Instrumental Lessons (Cello, Violin, Piano)
🎵 1-1 cello, violin, piano lessons
🎵 All ages welcome
🎵 Individual or group lessons available
Students are at the heart of these, and a wide and carefully selected repertoire and range of teaching techniques are used. Study music holistically as well as learning instrument specific skills - enquire about lessons here.
Musical Storytelling Projects - "Share a Soundventure" with Asta#Plays
🎵 Musical storytelling engages children in a different way with literature
🎵 Help develop language, phonological, and literacy skills
🎵 Enhance pro social skills as well as early musicality
🎵 Deliver bespoke sessions
🎵 Training in how to deliver in your own setting
Have an idea you'd like to explore? Send a brief and we can chat.
More details...
Guidance for Professionals - Music Education Consultancy
For generalists
Who can I help?
🎵 Primary generalists
🎵 ECTs
🎵 Music leads
🎵 SLT
🎵 Assembly hosts
🎵 School events organisers
It is my mission to provide assistance to primary school teachers who are tasked with delivering the curriculum in full. The lack of teacher training available to generalists teaching music is concerning. When resourced with the right tools, a quality and enjoyable music programme can be delivered even by those teachers in which delivering music may strike fear.
"Give a man a fish..." - Equipped with relevant skills, facilitators of music education can become empowered, competent and confident. "Goodbye" to quick fixes and issuing ready made curriculums. Need help developing or choosing a music curriculum, delivering music lessons musically with confidence, effective resourcing and management in the music classroom? Get in touch and I will convince you that we are ALL "musical". In addition, you can develop basic musical literacy skills which will aid you and your learners.
Sessions include:
🎵 Staff INSET
🎵 One to one sessions (e.g. music lead)
🎵 Twilight sessions
🎵 A course of sessions or one off (online or face to face)
🎵 Observations and feedback
🎵 Written resources and plans
For specialists
Despite being incredibly skilled in specific areas, speicalist music teachers are always on the look out for an enriching PD experience to close gaps in knowledge or experience. If anyone from your music department could benefit from a boost, including peripatetic teachers, primary or secondary music specialists, or events organisers, please reach out.
🎵 Dalcroze taster workshops (a holistic and creative approach to musical learning with an emphasis on movement and music, improvisation, and integrated aural training - suitable for all levels of learners)
🎵 Delivering instrumental programmes to larger groups of learners (useful for peripatetic teachers who are not used to classroom scenarios)
🎵 Events logistics (consultancy in scheduling rehearsals, reaching out to the wider community, ticketing, and practical set up/logistics for concerts and shows)
Early Years Musical Provision
Music training for practitioners
As en early years music specialist, I can help elevate the music provision for your children by up-skilling staff or delivering targeted workshops in the following:
🎵 Musical free flow - Make the most of your environment, equipment, and observations. Learn how to place children at the centre of musical learning while deepening understanding of their development. Create playful, meaningful, and musically rich experiences across the day.
🎵 Musical story telling - Add a musical dimension to story time to support social connection, prosocial skills, communication, and foundational musical learning.
🎵 Assessment - Develop confidence in recognising and evidencing musical development across everyday practice. Explore how music connects with the full breadth of the EYFS framework and contributes to the seventeen ELGs.
EY Music lessons in Nurseries and Schools
Formal and informal learning are both vital in the overall development of musical skills. Get in touch if you would like an early years music specialist (full QTS) to come and deliver a music session each week. Asta#Plays pedagogy combines the psychology of early development with the play based and exploratory elements of Dalcroze and Kodaly. Children who have regular music sessions have been found to have improved phonological awareness, executive functioning, and pro-social skills.
🎵 Vocal experimentation and control - leading to refined pitching ability and enhanced speech and language ability
🎵 Exposure to a variety of live instruments and sounds - focused listening or even general exposure develops understanding of the world and curiosity
🎵 Playing age appropriate instruments - develops motor skills and allows children to explore materials and sounds
🎵 Playing games which encourage turn taking, develop confidence, and build listening and awareness skills, whilst embedding basic musical concepts such as sense of beat, fast/slow, loud/quiet
🎵 Social engagement through body percussion, paired activities, circle games, and shared intention
🎵 Responding to music, developing motor skills, sequential memory, and aural awareness skills
🎵 Themed sessions which can reiterate learning from other areas of the curriculum or which build on knowledge and understanding of relevant festivals/seasons etc
Community Classes
What sets Asta#Plays apart from other early years music sessions?
🎵 Specially crafted sessions (not franchise)
🎵 Dalcroze certified (whole body musical training)
🎵 20 years experience
🎵 Early Years music specialist (including published literature)
Coming to classes is a great way for carers to meet and join in the fun, too!
Extra-curricular
Extra-curricular for children
If you need someone with extensive experience in leading and coordinating both Primary and Secondary ensembles, please get in touch.
🎵 Choirs
🎵 String ensembles
🎵 Rock bands
🎵 Orchestras and larger ensembles
🎵 Percussion groups/drumming circles
🎵 Production ensembles
🎵 Whole school singing assemblies
🎵 General assistance
Adult extra-curricular
Research has shown that physiological benefits of singing include boosted immune systems and improved respiratory functioning. Psychological and community benefits are also common as a result of group singing. Why not offer musical opportunity such as a staff choir, drumming circle, or percussion group to your staff (or parent!) body - instead of just working all day together, try playing! There is nothing like it to model a healthy attitude to life long learning and group participation to your students. Get in touch with any questions you may have.
Here are some links to get you started on further reading:
SEMH
Drumbeatable Programme
The Drumbeatable programme has been developed by Mike Simpson of the multi award winning Inspire-Works Global. The programme values process over product, and through group drumming activities aims to improve social and emotional resilience. During an era in which mental health issues are rising amongst children and young people, it is imperative that we as educators, role models, and facilitators address this. Research in neuroscience has shown that taking part in group drumming can:
🎵 Reduce anxiety
🎵 Boost the immune system
🎵 Raise dopamine levels
🎵 Reduce challenging behaviour
🎵 Improve Mood
🎵 Reduce feelings of isolation
🎵 Reduce restlessness and over activity
🎵 Increase empathy
🎵 Improve self worth
🎵 Promote positive risk taking behaviours
🎵 Help with change or transition
Read this article in Music Teacher Magazine to learn more, and reach out if you're interested in introducing the programme in your setting.
Another excellent resource for learning more about the benefits of musical participation for mental health and wellbeing is the Sing Up Foundation.
Embedding music in schools
Music can be enormously powerful in shaping identity, embracing and promoting diversity, and as an emotional or behaviour regulation tool. Contact me to find out how you can tap into this power everyday, and how simple habits like compiling class playlists, listening to music in communal areas, or writing a school song can enhance your sense of community.
Instrumental Lessons
1-1 and small group lessons
🎵 Cello students of all ages and ability welcome.
🎵 Beginner/pre Grade 5 level violin and piano students.
🎵 Full enhanced DBS and safeguarding certificates shared on request.
I hold a BMus (Hons) from Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, ABRSMDip in strings teaching, a PGCE with specialist strings teaching, and am Dalcroze certified.
First Access and School Music
As a QTS-qualified teacher with specialist string training from the University of Manchester and the Royal Northern College of Music, I deliver First Access programmes that go beyond basic instrumental instruction. Lessons are rooted in whole-curriculum understanding and a movement- and musicianship-led approach, prioritising engagement, ensemble playing, and meaningful musical development rather than quick wins or box-ticking.
If your school is introducing or expanding a strings First Access programme, Asta#Plays can support both pupils and staff - get in touch to find out more.
Musical Storytelling - "Share a Soundventure"
"Share a Soundventure" with Asta#Plays workshops
During my own research study (see link below), I found that entrainment (essentially "sychronisation") can positively impact the development of prosocial behaviours in young children. As part of the interventions, I designed musically engaging, interactive storytelling sessions for participants. Based on traditional fairytales, I incorporated musical aspects, and provided the children the opportunity to play, listen, and respond in unison. The full spectrum of movement and music entrainment interventions proved to be fundamental in increasing sharing capacity amongst the chilrren.
Learn and develop the skills required to deliver stories musically, opening a new way of engaging children with stories and literature, developing pro-social behaviours, and laying the foundations for musical learning. Send me a message to learn more about booking a Share a Soundventure workshop for your Early Years practitioners.
Bespoke Share a Soundventure with Asta#Plays service
If the idea of musical storytelling appeals to you, but you simply don't have the time or inclination to embark on training at the moment, then let me produce the materials for you! Get in touch with a brief specification (story, general intention, age group), and I'll work with you to create a personalised resource pack.
Asta#Plays Inspiration: Sir Ken Robinson
The late Sir Ken was an advocate for creativity in education systems, promoting the power and importance of imagination and finding flow in one's "element". You can watch his talks on Youtube and TED.com.
The Ken Robinson Foundation is committed to archiving his work, developing initiatives, and advocating for a more creative, individual-centered approach to education, moving away from conformity and standardization.
