Course facilitator: Helen Blackmore (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)

This course will provide early years educators with the confidence and musical tools to teach music effectively and with ease. We will develop your skill set using a variety of engaging techniques, so that you have a solid foundation on which to build a deep understanding to pass on to the children in your care.

Learn to use your voice effectively, and revisit (or meet for the first time) the cornerstones of music education in a creative and active way through movement, play and song.

Helen Blackmore is a music educator with a diverse skill set. Having read music at Trinity College Dublin (1997-2001) she returned there in 2003 to undertake a research masters in music education in the Irish school system. Helen designed and teaches on the highly successful early years programme at TU Dublin Conservatory of Music and Drama, working with children from preschool to around seven years. Helen has trained primary school teachers at Walton’s New School of Music, pre-school teachers in a very popular course in the National Concert Hall and student teachers on the Early Childhood Education course at TU Dublin and at St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra. She lectures in Marino Institute of Education, teaching music pedagogy to Early Childhood Education degree students and teaches children in primary schools around Dublin. Helen’s teaching is influenced by Dalcroze and Kodaly, involving singing, movement and play. She is currently studying for a certificate in the Kodály concept of music education with the British Kodály Academy. She has studied conducting with Mark Duley, Dr Geoffrey Spratt and Peter Broadbent, and singing with Tony Walsh at DIT and Philip O’Reilly at RIAM. Helen holds DipABRSM in piano teaching and has taught freelance for almost twenty years.