Dear Parent/Guardians/Carers/Friends,

For some of you, this may be a first look round, and others may have dipped their toes in previously, in which case, welcome!

Kimichi School started as a pipe-dream and a reaction to a system that seems inclined to force square pegs into round holes alongside the continuing lack of importance placed on Music in education.

Having spent time in maintained schools as a teacher and a governor, I was convinced that common sense was, in many cases, severely lacking.

For years I’d watched and heard classroom music teachers and peripatetic instrumental teachers bewailing music education. The Head of Music in a school of 600 who’d had his only music teacher “re-assigned” to teach RE. The peri teachers who’d, time after time, turn up to teach and end up shoehorned into a closet and allowed 20 minutes for an instrumental lesson. The paucity of GCSE or A Level Music in schools. The disappearance of school ensembles or orchestras.

But here’s the thing: Music is everywhere. Covid has wreaked havoc planet-wide, but has reinforced one aspect of humanity that’s vital. Music in films, music on the radio, socially distanced outside groups came together, virtual choirs sang and people came together.

The biggest lesson I learnt, having started a youth orchestra in the Caribbean that toured to the UK, was that music was at one and the same time a great leveller and yet extremely differentiated. In very few subjects can you naturally have a complete beginner working alongside a more advanced student: imagine a Year 6 child working in the same Maths class as a GCSE student.

The inherent teamwork, discipline and leadership skills that are used when playing as part of an ensemble are not to be negated; never mind the scientific studies done on the benefits of playing an instrument on the brain: too many to cite here.

This lesson was one that I brought back over to the UK with me and held dear to my heart throughout the PGCE (where I was consistently told off for questioning the rationale behind many of the lesson plan ideas we were given) and my subsequent placements and jobs in mainstream schools. The “too much noise in the music room” was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

In September 2014, the sister site to Kimichi Worcester, Kimichi School, officially opened with the grand total of two children and one teacher.

Since then we have grown into a well-established school that prides itself on its outcomes; whatever they may look like. We are excited to be recreating such an alternate view of education in the city of Worcester.

The ethos and purpose behind the school have never changed, but holistically as time has gone by, the focus has expanded. The oft ignored pedagogy of common sense dictated, and carries on dictating, that smaller class sizes will benefit our pupils as well as our teachers.

The overall and all-encompassing drive of the school was always going to be Music. As a keen amateur musician myself, I truly appreciate the enjoyment and challenge of playing an instrument in a large orchestra and the innate links between a plethora of soft skills. I wanted a school that encouraged all children to play at least one instrument, to prioritise GCSE and A Level Music (fast disappearing in the maintained sector) and generally encourage any and all things musical.

This school is one that fosters a love and appreciation of Music. The SEMH benefits of music-making are well documented.

Over the last twelve years, what I and all the staff who have joined over the years are inordinately proud of is the family feel that is often remarked on. I joke sometimes that we are a large, slightly somewhat dysfunctional family, but that is exactly how it feels.

We all very much look forward to welcoming you through this sister schools doors to carry on the tradition.