Peripatetic Musician - Woodwind

Old Swinford Services Ltd seeks to appoint a Peripatetic Musician for Woodwind lessons, to contribute to the work of the Music Department.

Old Swinford Hospital is one of the country’s leading state boarding schools. The majority of the School’s students are boarders who come from a wide range of backgrounds in the UK and also from the EU and overseas. A third of our pupils are day pupils, who usually go home after lessons, unless they are involved in sport or music, CCF or DofE.

The School is now on an exciting journey to become fully co-educational by September 2025. Girls joined us in September 2021 in Year 7, whilst the Sixth Form has been mixed since 2004.

OSH is calm place to work. It is inclusive, tolerant and welcoming. The atmosphere is supportive and orderly, and it is also very relaxed because for many of our pupils their school is also their home.

We pride ourselves on developing in our pupils a balance of academic achievement, character and resilience and we’ve been doing this now for nearly 360 years.

A major building programme has recently been completed which includes a large extension to an already impressive sports centre, an all-weather floodlit sports pitch, a new teaching block with a specialist arts room, a performing arts centre and a new senior boarding house.

The Music Department at Old Swinford is a large and thriving one. It is housed in an independent Music School, Hanbury House, which has a well-equipped ICT suite, recital room and practice rooms.

The music curriculum involves every lower school pupil in practical musical activities, with many opportunities to use ICT. There are strong numbers of pupils in GCSE and academic standards are very high, with about 1/2 of all Music students moving on to degree level courses at Universities, Conservatoires and Colleges of Music each year. The department also has an active programme of liaison work with local primary and secondary schools.

The Director of Music oversees the work of some 15 visiting instrumental and vocal teachers, and some 40% of the students in the school have a lesson each week. There is a wide range of extracurricular groups, including Concert Band, Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra, Swing Band, Choir and a number of smaller chamber ensembles. There is a full annual programme of concerts both in the school and the local community.

In July 2005 the Choir, Concert Band and Swing Band spent 8 days giving concerts in and around Venice, including St Mark’s Cathedral, and further tours have taken place to Barcelona, Salzburg, Berlin, Cologne, Paris and Austria.

• Be a graduate instrumentalist and/or have other appropriate and extensive experience of Woodwind teaching and performing.
• Be able to teach a specific instrument/s or vocal lesson to students of varying abilities, and at standards ranging from beginner to post grade 8.
• Enter students for Associated Board and other practical examinations when appropriate for the individual student; ideally examinations should be entered on a yearly basis.
• Keep up to date with examination developments and ensure students are supported to achieve success in these exams.
• Make an active contribution to the school’s systems of attendance monitoring and encourage regular practice by setting online prep.
• Support extracurricular activities by rehearsing music for extracurricular ensembles during individual lessons from time to time, and recommend students who are ready to join these ensembles.
• Be able to use ICT competently and therefore be willing to use school online systems (training will be given).
• Show an awareness of current teaching methods in their own practice, and of the needs of…