Page 375 - Guildhall Coverage Book 2020-21

Back in January, before coronavirus hit, we spoke to Joanna Cadman – a parent of two children
attending Saturday classes – about the PCYM experience, how it has changed them and why it is
much more than just learning an instrument…
How did you first get involved with PCYM’s Saturday music classes?
My son Edward is ten and he started with the Music Hub on the Saturday mornings at PCYM just
over two years ago now. He had just started playing the clarinet through school and we wanted
something else for him to expand into. And so we contacted PCYM. That was our first experience –
and it was such a good one that we decided to continue with them. Now our daughter Olivia, who is
six, has started taking violin lessons with them as well, having already done Music Starts Here with
them.
Was that first session also the first time she’d actually got her hands on a violin?
Yes! She is quite small for her age as well, so for that lesson they had to organize quite a small
violin – she’s on an eighth size violin. So, you know they have really gone out of their way for her,
but they’re brilliant like that. She came away absolutely loving everything she’d done, and couldn’t
wait to get home and get it out and show everybody – show her dad, show her brother, tell all her
friends about it at school. And the teacher that she’s got, Leon, was just great with her as well. He

really instilled in her that she has to do a little bit of practice, but also understands the need to have
fun. So, she absolutely loved it. And she’s still like that. She still comes away bouncing. She skips
in and she skips out!

It’s a large group of new people – was that daunting for either of them?
No, not at all – and it’s interesting because they both take something else from it, certainly our
youngest, Olivia. Both of her sessions are actually next door to each other, so she comes out of
one and she goes straight into the next one. The teacher stands there and points them in the right
direction, but once it’s been a couple of weeks they know what they’re doing, and they’re doing it
for themselves. They make friends really quickly as well. The teachers are great for that, doing little
games at the beginning so they get to know each other. Edward, who is now 10 going on 11, loves
it, because we just drop him off and he does his own thing, and that’s his first bit of independence.
He’s got to go from room to room, he’s got to pick up all his stuff. That’s exactly what he’s going to
get next year when he goes up to secondary school, but he loves the fact that he’s doing all that a
year early.
Have they made friends through those sessions?
Yes, both of them have – in fact, Olivia has now made a couple of friends in her sessions who she
sees outside of PCYM. Edward’s made friends there, too – and across the age ranges as well,