Music Makers!

Music Education
for Children Educated at Home

A pilot collaboration between Now Hear This Music C.I.C. and Portishead Children’s Centre.

Designed to inspire children to engage in practical music making and to begin to think more deeply about why they love the music they do!

  • Open to complete beginners as well as children with some experience of playing an instrument - including self-taught hobbyists.

  • Explore a broader range of styles and genres

  • Learn about theory of music through practical application

  • Write original music and play and perform with peers

We want this activity to instil a love for music making and to produce well-rounded young musicians, able to make more informed choices around their musical pursuits and specialisms.

WHO IT’S FOR

Children who:

  • Ages 8-12* who want a new kind of educational challenge. (*Flexible guide)

  • Enjoy a relaxed but purposeful environment for creating and learning.

  • Are interested in thinking more deeply about how music works.

  • Would enjoy putting theory into practice by creating their own music.

WHAT WE’LL DO

We will:

  • Provide keyboards, glockenspiels, and a selection of handheld percussion instruments for use during the sessions.

  • Welcome and encourage you to bring your own instruments too!

  • Listen, talk about, and learn to play favourites chosen by the group.

  • Combine practical work ‘Learning by Doing’ and conversation-based teaching around key music theory concepts to facilitate effective composing later on.

  • Create our own original piece of music.

WHEN and WHERE

The pilot course will begin in Term 2, 2025. 13 sessions will be offered, with the final session forming our sharing/performing opportunity to family and friends.

THURSDAYS 1:30pm - 2:30pm
Portishead Children’s Centre - St. Barnabas Hall’s meeting room

  • November: 6, 13, 20, 27

  • December: 4, 11, 18

  • January: 8, 15, 22, 29

  • February: 5, 12

COSTS

We have set the cost of participation as low as possible while keeping it viable and sustainable. Please chat to us if cost presents a barrier.

The cost of this pilot course is set at £7.50 per person, per week. Billing will be termly, payable by the first session of each term:

6th Nov. 2025& 8th Jan. 2026

A note on access and cost:

Now Hear This Music C.I.C. practitioners are experts in music pedagogy, highly qualified professionals, with years of experience teaching and making music with learners from complete beginners, to Grade 8+ and pre-professional ability levels.

Experience tells us that, for so many, the cost of private, instrument-specific music tuition is a significant barrier to music participation. Compounding this, committing money and time to an instrument-specific educational pathway, before the learner has really had chance to explore the huge variety of music out there, and discovering what really ignites their musical passions and ambitions, can also feel like a huge investment risk. We hear so many tales of young people quitting before they ever really get going, simply because the instrument was wrong, or the repertoire too narrow, or the traditional approaches to teaching left them bored and uninspired.

We believe the pilot outlined above will help to improve access, inspire meaningful engagement, and facilitate more young people to explore making music in a way that THEY value, leading to a lifelong love for learning and collaborative participation in expressive arts.

If all of this sounds good…