Certificate in Teaching Inclusively

Dr. Jenevora Williams is a leading exponent in the field of vocal health and singing teaching. After a successful career in Opera, Jenevora turned her attention to investigating healthy and efficient vocal function. The combination of academic study and practical experience has resulted in a unique perception for understanding the human voice. She was the first singing teacher to be awarded a PhD in voice science in the UK, and won the 2010 BVA Van Lawrence Prize for her outstanding contribution to voice research. Her book, Teaching Singing to Children and Young Adults, has been enormously popular with singing teachers throughout the world. She is well-known for her imaginative and rigorous training courses for singing teachers in the UK, the US and Europe. As a teacher of singing, she works with professional singers of all ages, as well as training teachers in rehabilitation for Vocal Health Education and BAPAM.

Jenna Brown is a freelance mezzo-soprano, vocal coach and music educator based in the UK. A former choral scholar at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, she continues to work as a choral singer and soloist, as well as providing vocal health aware choral coaching and singing teaching. Jenna is recognised for her work with adults and children with additional needs and holds an MSc in Teaching and Learning from Oxford University, where she researched Special Educational Needs.

As a qualified teacher, Jenna has worked with several UK Universities as professional tutor for trainee teachers and continues to provide consultancy on music education, including as director of Education and Outreach for the Fitzhardinge Consort, and music leader at Bristol Beacon, where she supports the continued professional development of tutors. Combining her interests in voice pedagogy and teacher education, she has a developing research portfolio with particular interest in music psychology.

Paul Whittaker was born Deaf in 1964. After gaining a music degree from Wadham College, Oxford, and a Post-graduate diploma from the RNCM he founded “Music and the Deaf,” which he ran for 27 years. Since 2015 he has worked freelance, promoting music and deafness and encouraging access and inclusion.

Paul has worked as a theatre, opera and concert interpreter since 1992, with The Sixteen, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Britten Sinfonia and Opera North, and led projects across Europe with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.
During lockdown he has created many BSL resources and worked with the Stay at Home Choir, Oxford Bach Soloists, NYCGB Alumni and NYCOS.

Elizabeth is an experienced singing teacher with a portfolio of work built up over the last thirty years. Her teaching encompasses many genres of performance arts including opera, music theatre, community dance and singing for health and well-being projects.

She has completed an MA (distinction) specialising in singing for health for Parkinson’s sufferers. Her research papers have been presented at the British Voice Association, Society for Music Education in Ireland, Parkinson UK conferences.

Elizabeth’s community projects place creativity and social connection at the heart of classes. Groups have performed at an eclectic variety of venues from Stormont, Northern Ireland to ‘Big Sing’ Events in Co. Wexford.

Elizabeth is resident director for the Children’s Opera Chorus and outreach education for the Wexford International Opera Festival. Currently, she is in collaboration with Dublin based composer Andrew Synott, creating a children’s opera for the 2022 Wexford Opera Season.

(she/her & they/them)
Master of Music from North Park University; Vocology from University of Utah and University of Iowa

Liz teaches fellow voice teachers who are eager to support their transgender and non-binary students through workshops, public speaking, training sessions, and online courses. Liz is the author of One Weird Trick: A User’s Guide to Transgender Voice and co-author of The Singing Teacher’s Guide to Transgender Voices.

Liz also manages the daily operations at The Voice Lab and is always excited to welcome new students!

Katie Teage is an Educator, Choir conductor, Composer, Arranger and Soprano with the London Vocal Project. Katie studied a BA in Music at Middlesex university (2005), a MMus in Composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (2008) and a MA in Music Education at the Institute of Education (University College London) (2014). Katie is also a qualified teacher (QTS 2010).

Katie’s 15 years’ experience in primary education and work as an Assistant Headteacher puts her in high demand as an educator. Katie is a musicianship teacher and workshop leader at the Royal College of Music, works for schools in London as Primary Music Specialist, and a Choral and Musicianship leader for The Voices Foundation.

Dr Caitlin Shaughnessy is a researcher at the Royal College of Music and at the University of Roehampton, focusing on the importance of the arts for promoting wellbeing, care and learning. In 2021 she completed her PhD which explored the role of musical play for autistic children and their families, focusing on everyday strategies for musical development. Her other research projects have also examined the role of music for supporting wellbeing in perinatal care, self-regulation during musical learning in the early years, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the arts. Her research has been funded by the ESRC, the Wellcome Trust and the Society for Music, Education and Psychology Research.

Jo Reader is a BACP accredited Counsellor and Supervisor having started a career in music teaching 25 years ago.

Alongside continuing to teach voice and piano, after a career being a classroom music teacher in a secondary school and a Young Offenders Institute, she became an Education Welfare Officer supporting families through difficult times which prevented their child from going to school. This led her to retrain and qualify as a Counsellor in 2011. She now has a private counselling practice which includes supervising other counsellors with their work.

Eleanor is a School Counsellor and a Staff Counsellor at the University of Bristol. She also has a particular interest in working with weight stigma, the Mother-Daughter relationship, young people, parents of teenagers and undertaking critical incident debriefs.

Amelia Goodall has been teaching music for 18 years. She studied the Kodály method, eurythmics and the psychology of teaching with the DaCapo Foundation in London and continues to learn from her students on a daily basis.

Whilst at the Cathedral Primary School in Bristol her teaching was described by an Ofsted inspector as “exceptionally outstanding”.

Amelia teaches choirs and Kodály musicianship classes in schools and runs early years music classes. She is also trained as a primary school teacher and music therapist.

As a violinist, Amelia has performed with Les Siècles, Northern Lights Symphony Orchestra, the Bristol Ensemble, the Glenn Miller Band and Sam Smith.

Other than teaching and playing music, she is happiest when up a mountain, in water or adventuring with her husband and two young boys.

Antonia Lythgoe is a Senior Lecturer in Education at the School of Education, University of Bristol, whose career in education spans almost 30 years. She was formerly a secondary school teacher of Geography before working for Bristol Local Education Authority as a curriculum support teacher. She then moved to the university to run an Initial Teacher Education programme, training people to become teachers of Citizenship. She ran the Teach First Programme at the University for a number of years before moving into lecturing on Undergraduate and Masters programmes in Education. Her research focuses on student wellbeing and classroom learning environments.

Eleanor Kelly started teaching in 2004 with a role teaching English and Media in Greenford in London. She then moved to Cheddar in Somerset, where she qualified to be a SENCo in 2012. She also undertook training in SEMHS and became a qualified specialist teacher in Specific Learning Difficulties. She was proud to win Ups and Downs’ (a charity for young people with Down Syndrome in the South West) first ‘Teacher of the Year Award’ at this time. After having children, she moved to the Keynsham area in Bristol working with students with SEMHS needs in a support base before becoming the SENCO in a school with a high level of SEN needs.

Currently she is working for the Hospital Education and Reintegration Service in Bath and North East Somerset and enjoying being able to devote time and attention to some of the area’s most vulnerable young people.

Throughout her life singing has been the best way for Eleanor to escape from the challenges of her career and she has been part of Exultate Singers -an accomplished chamber choir in the South West since 2006. She enjoyed making the film as it allowed her to combine her passions and hopes it helps others to give the best possible access to singing for those with additional needs.

Lindsay is a widely recognised and highly respected second-generation Alexander teacher. She qualified from the Oxford Alexander Teacher Training School in 1990 and she has been a visiting tutor on teacher training courses including the Alexander Re-education Centre, the Oxford Alexander Training School and the London Centre for Alexander Teacher Training. She had her first Alexander lessons at the age of 14 whilst at Chetham’s School of Music and has worked as a singer in the music profession for over 30 years.
She sang for many years with I Fagiolini, the Monteverdi Choir, the English Concert, and the BBC Singers. As someone who has developed a busy Alexander teaching practice alongside a successful and varied singing career, Lindsay understands ‘from the inside’ how inextricably linked our personal development is to our musical development and the type of support required to navigate through what can be a highly pressurised environment. In her private teaching practice, she sees a variety of professional musicians and she has many other non-musician pupils who have been referred by their GP for reasons ranging from repetitive strain injury to anxiety issues.
She is passionate about teaching the Alexander Technique in such a way that pupils are equipped to apply their learning to everything they do. In the case of musicians, this means helping them improve the quality of their practice and performance by using the Alexander Technique in all aspects of their life, so that they are in better psychophysical shape and able to apply the principles of the Technique to their playing or singing. The Technique is presented in a way relevant to the pupil’s particular skill to help them realise the extent to which they can make conscious choices about how they do what they do, to achieve their full potential.

Tara Baggott is a singing teacher, Community Music Leader and SEND Music Specialist who has been working for various inclusive music organisations for several years in Bristol. After volunteering on music workshops for young disabled people for two years with Drake Music, Tara began working for Open Orchestras and has led several disabled orchestras in various school in Bristol and Bath, as well as delivered training to music leaders throughout the country. She is currently an SEN music leader with Bristol Beacon, Trainer and Orchestra leader with Open Orchestras, and runs her own SEND music workshops through local Bishopston charity, Send A Welcome. Tara trained at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and is on the pathway to gaining her EMT (level 2) through Estill voice. She has been teaching singing for 7 years and has performed regularly as a professional singer in several bands based in Bristol.

Nick qualified as a teacher with a 4 year BEd, specialising in music, from Kingston University in 1998. From there, she did 5 years as a primary class teacher before moving full time to Hampshire Music Service. In September 2018 she joined the leadership team as Lead Professional, Vocal (in charge of the vocal strategy for all Hampshire Schools). She also still teaches small group and individual singing lessons for around 120 students a week, runs the Hampshire County Junior Choir, The Hampshire Teachers Choir and another workplace choir for her colleagues at the county council.

In terms of her own singing, she trained classically and had local teachers who used the Estill Methodology. She has mostly performed locally for charity concerts, loves singing Mozart as much as Cole Porter, and adores anything musical theatre. She is currently part of a jazz duo doing small scale gigs, and regularly leads a modern worship band at her church and (in the past) National Christian Gatherings.

In more recent years, she has trained with Gillyanne Kayes, Jenevora Williams, Ron Morris, Dane Chalfin and Mark De Lissa. She is currently doing Anne Leatherland’s ‘Appy Days’ course to upskill in all things tech-related to stay at the forefront for her students.

Lucie Rayner is a Chartered Physiotherapist and assessing clinician for The British Association for Performing Arts Medicine (BAPAM) and specialises in treating performing artists with a wide range of musculoskeletal problems. She has extensive experience in managing acute and chronic injuries in dancers, musicians, and other performers from amateur to elite level. She currently works freelance in a variety of settings, including supporting West End musical theatre performers with their musculoskeletal and vocal health. Lucie is a Vocal Health First Aider and has a special interest in hypermobility, injury prevention and health education. In 2020, she completed the MSc in Performing Arts Medicine at University College London (UCL) which includes an ENT Consultant-led module on the Voice. Lucie is now an honorary lecturer and co-leads the ‘Pain and Disability in Performance’ module on the Performing Arts Medicine programme at UCL.

Grace Meadows
Grace has a life-long career in music, having initially trained as a professional bassoonist at The Guildhall. For the last decade she has worked as a qualified music therapist in a variety of health, social care and educational settings with children and adults across the lifespan, including a large London NHS Trust. Her clinical experience includes autism and communication impairments, child development, mental health and learning disabilities.
She is currently Campaign Director for Music for Dementia, a national campaign calling for music to be an integral part of care for everyone living with dementia.
Her early campaign experience was developed at the Music Manifesto, and Sing Up, the national programme to reinstate singing in primary schools. A passionate voice for the power and value of music, Grace later worked for the British Association for Music Therapy, advocating for the inclusion of music and music therapy across health, social care and educational systems.
Grace is passionate about the value of music, the arts more broadly and culture to enhance and enrich lives, and the power of people and collaboration to create transformative impact and change. She continues to play bassoon and contrabassoon for pleasure with orchestras in London.

Dr Louise Copp has been working as an Educational Psychologist for 11 years. She has experience of: assessing individual needs; developing and delivering training packages; developing interventions in schools; re-structuring an SEN department; and coordinating whole-school interventions for social communication and mental health needs. Louise has a special interest in working with young people who are on the Autistic Spectrum.

Sam Capindale is a Speech and Language Therapist working for a company called Talk Speech and Language Therapy, which is based in Bristol. Part of his role involves giving speech and language therapy to children and young people aged 4-18. He works in mainstream and specialist school settings, as well as visiting students in different schools as part of an outreach caseload.

Sam uses Makaton to support the communication of all the children and young people he works with. He also loves to sing – so he sings and signs around school whenever he can! He hopes that through watching his training video, you will want to find out much more about Makaton, and even attend some of the accredited courses! You can find all the information you need on the Makaton website.