Learning made fun

Web Site Makeover

IN celebration of our 21st Anniversary we have decided to give the web site a full makeover.

We have improved the site navigation and dedicated a different section for our Classes (Learning Made Fun) and Franchise (Business Made Fun) visitors.

There continues to be music on the site (please turn it on or off as you wish), new and more photos as well as news updates.

The 1st Musical Mini

MUSICAL Minis is celebrating its 21st Anniversary next term which has prompted me to look back as to why I created it and thinking back to the first Musical Mini. Matthew, my nearly 22 year old son, was the reason Musical Minis was launched and he was the original Musical Mini.

Prior to having Matthew I had studied psychology at Warwick University, worked on the cardiac unit at Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital as a play specialist and married Rob. I thought I would return to work after maternity leave as I really did love working at the hospital - the children were so remarkable and carried on as if nothing was wrong with them, even after open heart surgery they wanted to get up and play whereas adults realising they were meant to be weak would be much less energetic. Heart transplants were just being carried out on children and I enjoyed visiting other leading hospitals to find out how they were supporting the children through this traumatic period. However, with the birth of Matthew I soon knew that I would be unable to leave my own child to be with other children all day. Also now being a Mum I knew I would have too much empathy with the parents which would make my job really difficult. Luckily as I had a NHS salary the money was not great so I could manage without it - especially as I would have had to pay for travel and childcare.

Being a stay at home Mum I took Matthew to toddler groups and an activity class. Matthew loved the songs at the start and end of these sessions and I realised how much he learnt from them. I carried on singing them to him at home and even with my awful singing he loved it. His language development and coordination significantly improved. I set out to try to find a class that used music for him to join.

Graduation at Cambridge

FRIDAY June 25th was the finale for Matthew, my eldest child, of his University days. It really didn't seem that long ago, although it was, that he had his last day at nursery, last day at primary school and last day at school!

Matthew has been studying law at Cambridge University for the last 3 years. After his Final exams he like other 3rd year students, stayed in Cambridge for the end of year parties, May Balls and results. June 25th was his college, Christ's College, graduation day.

As parents to see your child graduate is really exciting. Graduation at Cambridge, with all its traditions, resulted in us feeling extremely privileged to be there and of course tremendously proud.

We left home early on the Friday morning, the thought of being caught in traffic and missing the ceremony just wasn't worth chancing. As Christ's is a relatively small college with about 120 students graduating each year, we luckily could have tickets for Rob and I plus my parents. In the end we even managed to get a spare ticket so Emily, my daughter, came too. We had booked into the Doubletree by Hilton Cambridge as we wanted to make a weekend out of this experience. Each Cambridge college has its own graduation ceremony at different times over the Thursday, Friday and Saturday so Cambridge was bursting with people.