SOMETHING TO MAKE A REAL SONG AND DANCE ABOUT!When you think of Kindermusik classes for young children, you would be forgiven for thinking it must be the brainchild of an enterprising mum who wants to continue looking after her child whilst earning a little extra cash.
Well, you’d be wrong. Kindermusik is the world’s largest music and movement programme for children newborn to seven years and was surprisingly founded by a man, Dan Pratt, in the United States, 25 years ago.
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The UK company was established in August 2004. It has been an instant hit with young children and parents alike and focuses on the belief that every child is musical and parents are children’s most important teachers.
The idea is to make music a fun experience for young children, while advancing all aspects of their childhood development from social and emotional skills through to progressing language, musical, cognitive and physical abilities. Parents are kept on their toes too with a supply of home materials to help make music and learning part of their family time together.
And the concept works! In the last 2 years, the number of licensed educators in the UK has risen from 7 to 110 and the organisation considers it to be probably the fastest growing music programme in the UK and Ireland. In the UK, 98% of the educators are women. Many of them have young children and are looking to use their musical background in a job that fits in around their children, whilst paying well for the hours they do.
Often, as in the case of Vanessa Webb, the UK Area Developer and Director of Kindermusik UK Ltd, the mum seizes the opportunity to change career whilst her children are young. Vanessa had always been musical and was keen to find a job that utilised her previous business skills but that also involved teaching music to children.
“Kindermusik impressed me because of the quality teaching and amount of childhood development learning built into the programme versus other music groups. I started teaching in 2002 with just two small classes. I now provide lessons for around 100 families in Surrey with waiting lists for many classes,” says Vanessa.
Kindermusik educators involve parents from the start, leading groups of parents and children through structured fun activities using music and movement.
Much thought has been given to the programme’s curriculum. Leading professionals in the areas of speech, language, reading, child psychology, movement, dance and neurology have been consulted to provide guidance in the programme’s creation. The result is that the music in tonality, pace, rhythm and song is suitable for each stage of the child’s development up until the age of seven. Childhood development experts throughout the world now endorse the programme.
“I believe the scheme is popular because parents recognise how much thought has gone into the lessons and the fact they are based on the latest research. Importantly, parents can continue the Kindermusik experience at home with quality CD’s, story- books, home activities and instruments. Many families have been with me since they were very young and it’s great to see the programme’s benefits as they move through different curricula,” concludes Vanessa.
Low start up costs equate to approximately £700, making Kindermusik a realistic business proposition unlike some franchise operations that can cost as much as £15,000 with ongoing royalties.
From humble beginnings, US founder, Dan Pratt has seen his passion for Kindermusik grow from four educators to over 6000 teachers who are now touching the lives of more than 1.5million families with small children in 35 countries.
The original idea stems from the 1960’s when a group of music educators in West Germany developed ‘Musikalische Fruherziehung’ to allow children to experience the joy of music before starting formal music instruction.
In the 70s, the programme was translated and adapted for American families. As Dan Pratt discovered there was almost no-one available to organise, train and support independent music teachers, who wanted to offer pre-school children classes on their own. Dan, who was a singer, college professor and higher education administrator, set up a partnership with a friend that would eventually take them from a garage in New York to a 45,000 sq ft headquarters in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Although now retired Dan looks back on the last two decades with Kindermusik and says, “This period has been the most rewarding of my working life. The contact with educators and parents has been stimulating and productive, and it has been a great joy to be able to build a solid business base which both contributes to a child’s early development, and also provides rewarding work for able educational professionals.”
Though not an “enterprising mum”, Dan does consider himself to be “a very proud ‘papa’ to the business of Kindermusik”
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