Detailed Information

Making music is the activity about which I have been most passionate throughout my life, and since January 2000 I have discovered a similar enthusiasm for teaching.  Although I have taught music on a one–to–one basis at various times in my life, it has been from 2000 that I have had the most interest and commitment, and this is reflected in the training I have undertaken for the profession in recent years.  Additionally, I value highly the opportunity to contribute as a teacher to my local and neighbouring communities.

To view a Personal Statement in support of any music teaching post application, click there or here (.pdf).

Teaching Experience

Overall, I have a fairly broad range of teaching experience, as it includes, in a variety of learning contexts and professional roles, music, numeracy, literacy and other National Curriculum subjects besides music (as a supply teacher).  The learning contexts include college, state and independent secondary schools, small–group workshops, distance–learning and one–to–one lessons.  My roles have included curriculum design, lesson planning and teaching, supply teaching and lecturer.  In music, in addition to teaching individuals in my home, recent professional training has led to a variety of external posts, including:

• One–to–one teaching in the Jazz Piano ‘chair’ at Tonbridge School (Kent), a senior independent school

• Classroom teaching of the National Curriculum for Music in outer– and inner–London state comprehensive secondary schools (Key Stages 3, 4 and 5), most recently at Debden Park High School (Loughton, Essex)

— One–to–one —

As shown above, I teach jazz piano on a one–to–one basis at Tonbridge School.  At home, I teach adult and adolescent singers and most conventional instrumentalists from beginner to advanced levels.  Since I specialise in jazz and the rock and dance music streams of the 1960s and ‘70s, I have taught more in relation to those genres than others.  However, I do have students of western classical music, including those studying towards Grade exams.  Also, from September 2002 till July 2008, I was a distance–learning tutor for the Open College of the Arts, for their Composing Music I and II courses, which are focused on western classical music.  Most musicianship skills are universal, and my students and I repeatedly discover how skills and understanding derived from one genre can inform practice in another.  Since January 2000, I have taught students of piano, voice, bass, saxophone, trumpet, guitar and drums (which I played professionally).  My one–to–one teaching includes, for Tower Hamlets Leaving Care Services between January 2004 and June 2007, an effectively blind, young adult singer with additional severe learning disabilities.

I hope this has been helpful and encouraging.  If you have any questions or wish to enquire about lessons, I would welcome your call (020 8558–6829).

Yours faithfully,

Claude Alexander

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Copyright © 2010 Claude Alexander – All rights reserved.