Music is a fantastic tool for motivation and regulation – not just for homework and revision but even, believe it or not, for exams. How music helps Music helps in so many ways: Jiggling along to a song's rhythm provides a channel for movement, when sitting still takes more concentration than you have to spare. Following along with a track's "feels" provides an easy channel for emotions, when suppressing stress or anxiety only makes it harder to think. Singing along to the mu

Just gave my last exam lesson for the year. So proud of my students for all that they've overcome!! Chief highlights of this exam season for me: using the proportion of high heels and flats in my future-fashion-student's wardrobe to learn about ratio getting momentarily distracted from introducing a student to the deliciousness of half rhymes by her cat getting trapped in my long skirt a student teaching me about the world's only flightless parrot – and then us using its big

(hard not to feel like I was posing for Beyoncé’s ‘Single Ladies’ while taking these photos) A common problem for my anxious lessons is that horrible dread of making mistakes. It’s so easy to get stuck – you make a mistake, you freak out about it, your brain freezes up…and now it feels like you can’t do anything. Least of all risk making another mistake that might make your brain freeze even more. So I’m forever grateful to my old singing teacher who taught me the 5 stages of