Happy 12th Birthday Perform
12 months. 12 disciples. 12 star signs. 12 years of Perform.
On 8th January 2012, Perform was 12 years old and I, for one, can’t quite believe it. It was January 8th 2000 when I started my first ever Perform class at Primrose Hill Community Centre with just 4 children. And now, 12 years later, we have over 4,000 children attending our classes every week in over 200 venues from London to Brighton, to Winchester to Leighton Buzzard and to Oxford.
I’d started planning Perform in June 1999 and my business partner Will and I had spent hours and hours even before then thinking of how we could create the best ever drama workshops for young children. We’d worked for other drama schools and we wanted to do something better. Something with child’s development at the heart of the workshops instead of vocal technique, dance steps, lines and auditions. An opportunity for young children to have fun with drama, dance and singing, but without the pressure of having to be “talented” or competing with others. Read more »
Want to start your own business?
Having set up Perform almost 12 years ago now, I often get asked questions by other Mums who are looking to set up something of their own like “How did you get the idea to set up the business?” and “What was your business background?”
This type of question always makes me blush a bit because, until I started Perform, I had absolutely no business experience whatsoever! I studied drama at university and was a theatre actress performing mainly in musicals in the West End and on tour. In between acting jobs, I would teach drama, dance and singing to young children.
Ridiculously, I didn’t even have an email address when I started Perform never mind anything resembling a business plan. If I’d gone on Dragons’ Den and had been asked questions about gross profit and turnover, I would have been one of those contestants who bow their heads and look embarrassed. Read more »
The P Factor
On January 8th 2000, I opened my first Perform class. Me, a teacher and four children.
It went pretty well – all things considered. But, afterwards, when I was talking to the parents about my plans to eventually open Perform all over London, one of the mums said that my greatest challenge would be finding great people to run the classes. People who would do an amazing job every week whether you are there or not.
11 years,180 teachers and 4,000 children a week later, I agree!
The biggest challenge and the most time-consuming element of my job is recruiting. And that’s simply because it’s not just important – it’s the most important thing. Having fantastic teachers is the only way we can guarantee the standards of our classes.
Perform teachers have to be “triple threats”. For anyone that’s not familiar with the musical theatre term, that means able to act, sing and dance. They must be brilliant with children, totally professional, have staggering energy…and like getting up at 6am on Saturday mornings.
Productivity 101, or Trying to Work Smarter
Since becoming a parent, I’ve been increasingly concerned about the amount of time I spend working. It’s very difficult to shut off when you run your own business (or indeed to shut off from any job that you care about). The thing is – I also really care about being a good parent – and that’s a really important job too, right?
As the amount of work isn’t likely to decrease any time soon – not least because we’ve still got huge plans to grow Perform – I’ve become increasingly preoccupied with efficiency. How can I work smarter?
I’m sure many other parents are in a very similar position to me, as such I thought I’d share some the things that I do – (hopefully you’ll find them useful) – plus of course I’m really keen to hear what you do too!
So, here’s how I’m rolling ‘productivity-wise’ these days:
The Death of the ‘To Do’ List
Yes, yes I know – how do I get anything done? Well, I still keep a ‘to do’ list – but now I do it online. I found I was wasting a huge amount of time virtually every day because I was feeding an endless, hastily scribbled list. At least a couple of times a week I’d sit down and try to re-write the list – popping some sort of priority against it.
But, it never really worked for me.
Teaching the Teachers
Wow – it’s been yet another hectic week! No rest for the wicked, eh?
This week I’ve been working hard with our Regional Partner Simon Fielding on developing a new series of training courses for our Perform teachers.
Simon originally joined us 9 years ago as a Producer - and then soon became an Area Partner, visiting schools, evaluating teachers etc, but last term we decided to set him a brand new challenge. We’re focusing on growth here at Perform, but I’m absolutely passionate about ensuring that standards don’t slip as we grow. You see, unlike all other children’s drama classes, we don’t operate as franchises – instead, all Perform schools are centrally managed and they all run the same curriculum so we can maintain the high quality of our workshops across the board.
Over the years Simon’s been instrumental in helping to evolve the Perform style of teaching that we a call ‘learning through laughter’. He is staggeringly good at his job and such an inspiring trainer.
