About

 A keen linguist and musician, after studying for my degree in Language and Linguistics at York University (with a focus on French and Swahili) and then a PGCE at Oxford Brookes University, I continued my passion by working with young people through the local church community: raising money by camping out in the winter for homeless charities; organising pop-up shops and sales to provide an outlet for fairly-traded goods; holding ‘fast or feast?’ lunches to demonstrate the unfair distribution of food in our world; and taking our youth group and my young kids to join the human chain around the G7 in Birmingham to push for debt justice. It was my dream to work overseas in another culture. But in the meantime, I threw myself into my work as a primary school teacher and always had my guitar at hand – music was central to my approach across the curriculum.

After teaching for several years in UK primary schools as both a class teacher and a music specialist, I finally found myself living in a wonderful North African country with my young family. My husband and I were involved in an international NGO whose mission was to grow capacity in both local charities and government departments to bring transformation to those on the very edges of society. I had the privilege of teaching music in a local school, working in three languages, and linking with some of the projects our NGO was helping to support. I later also helped to found a British International School in the country.

Over a period of several years in this country, I led a project in which children from mainstream schools and those from a centre supporting multiply disabled children worked together to perform music. We put on several concerts and created a CD and a DVD. The last concert we performed involved five international schools and two centres for children with disabilities and was attended by hundreds of people from all walks of life, from the most disadvantaged to a government minister. What an amazing privilege this was – and we saw barriers tumble down between children from such different backgrounds - in a culture where disability was seen as something to be hidden.

Returning to the UK most summers with our children to visit family and friends, I often found myself reflecting on the privilege of our experience of living between two countries and several cultures. My own children were growing up knowing three languages and having a first-hand understanding of many cultures both through their schooling and our many links in the local and expatriate communities. If only all children could experience even a fraction of this profound privilege, and the resulting sense of being a global citizen! I found myself longing to introduce some of the children I was teaching in North Africa to pupils in the UK, but couldn’t work out how this could ever be possible.

When we returned to the UK after nearly nine years overseas, I found myself teaching in a very monocultural area of the country. For my pupils, encountering children from other cultures - or even children with a different skin colour - wasn’t remotely part of their experience. As RE co-ordinator, helping to forge links through trips and visits became increasingly important to me.

When my Headteacher asked me to head up our school’s link with a school in East Africa, I found myself jumping at the chance. I had the privilege of travelling to the area and meeting pupils and teachers, and then sharing that experience with our pupils here in the UK.

During this time, I completed my MA in Education with the University of Cumbria, focused on Values Education, singing, and connection, and including an in-depth research project into the North African singing project I had led. My dissertation went on to examine my UK school’s link with our partner school in East Africa, which we were seeking to strengthen through musical exchange. We moved from initially recording and sending songs, to meeting online and sharing a song together in real time. My research demonstrated that this experience proved very meaningful for both pupils and staff in the UK and East Africa, building a sense of connection that went beyond simply head knowledge to a deeply emotional bond. In my work, which won an academic award, I also created a theoretical model based on the work of two academics, which could be adapted for school use and shared with those who might want to replicate the idea.

I realised that I had begun to answer my question of how it might be possible to build a meaningful connection between children from vastly different cultures and backgrounds. As my North African music project with mainstream and special schools had also shown, singing together broke down barriers between two groups that initially regarded each other as ‘different’, helping children – and their teachers -  to realise we’re all in this together.

I was excited to share my ideas with others who might be interested, and began to build on my research to start doing some training and networking events. Qantra Services was born!