Lucy's blog

This week, I shared this article on social media. I read a lot about child development and probably share more articles than my friends and family would thank me for. But this article seemed to strike a chord with people and I think it’s probably because it’s both...

Around two years ago, we established Perform X, a street and hip hop dance class for 6-12 year olds. As with our drama classes, we wanted to offer more than just a dance lesson. We wanted to use dance as a tool for developing life skills as well as keeping fit. And...

When Perform parents feed back to me about our teachers,  they consistently use the same vocabulary to describe them. 'Nurturing', 'energetic', 'inspiring', 'amazing' are words that come up again and again. Considering there are...

Before I had children, I never thought that it would be difficult as a parent to communicate with your kids after the school day or activity to find out how it all went. Now I have kids of my own, I know how very hard, if not impossible, it actually is. I remember my...

Getting ready for the term ahead is always an exciting process as we prepare the content for the new themes and new end of term shows. At this point, the songs are written, the choreography set, scripts printed, and the music learnt. If we were a...

This week is a very busy week for us at Perform HQ. Despite that fact that our term ends on 21st July, we are working hard to put the final touches on our summer holiday courses that start on 24th July and run until 25th August. This year, 7-12s will be working on a...

This week, parents nationwide have probably been deliberating the same challenging question: how do we explain the Manchester bombings to our children? When I woke up yesterday morning and saw the terrible news, I called my husband who was already at work. He told me to...

At every Perform class, we have a focus of the week. The focuses are usually based on a practical social ability such as Eye Contact, Volunteering or How to use a loud voice . This week, our topic is How to do the perfect handshake. Even though...

One of our brilliant Perform Teachers sent me this article. It's about how parents should deal with separation anxiety when leaving their child at school or a class for the first time and I wholeheartedly agree with the advice. For 20 years, I’ve taught...

I recently came across a really interesting post on Ideas.Ted.com. It discusses whether schools should start teaching emotions as well as other core subjects. You can read it here. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts. Teaching emotions is...