Do you want to help more people get access to music and arts education?
Are you a keen supporter of the arts? (You don't have to be a musician or artist yourself.)
Do you want to make a difference to a local community?
Do you love growing and developing organisations?
We, at the Blackheath Conservatoire of Music and the Arts, aim to nurture creativity and be accessible to all communities, centred around our heritage base in the heart of SE London.
We are looking for an experienced Executive Director to lead the Conservatoire team through updating our listed building and growing the Conservatoire, including expanding our services and audience. This role is full time and will lead the Conservatoire team. We are a learning organisation and hope you will learn and grow in the role too.
The organisation is at a strategic turning point, with ambitions to restore and reinvigorate its heritage building as a community hub and to grow sustainable, diversified income to support that.
As Executive Director, you will lead and run the Conservatoire and work alongside the Board to develop and deliver the organisation's strategic goals. Reporting directly to the Board of Trustees, your main duties will include:
Blackheath Conservatoire is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and we expect all staff to share and demonstrate this commitment. We require all staff and freelance tutors to hold an Enhanced DBS and undertake Safeguarding Level One and Prevent training - we can process a DBS for those who do not already hold one.
If you are invited for an interview for a role at the Conservatoire, please review the Safer Recruitment Self Declaration which we will ask you to complete on your arrival. We will also ask you to bring various ID documents. For full details please refer to the Safeguarding section on the Blackheath Conservatoire website.
The Blackheath Conservatoire of Music and the Arts is a registered charity, with 140 years' history of delivering high-quality experiences and learning in music and art. We deliver music and arts education to around 2,000 people each week across all ages, with a strong commitment to access and community participation in Greenwich and Lewisham.
Please complete the application form by 27th Nov 17:00 or email us at edrecruitment@conservatoire.org.uk and we'll send you the link.
We'd love you to apply even if you think you only match 70-80% of the criteria.
Please apply, even if you are returning to work after a career break.
We're an organisation passionately committed to equality and inclusion in music and arts we positively encourage applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates regardless of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, religion or belief, marital status, or pregnancy and maternity. We are committed to becoming more representative of our local community, so we particularly welcome applications from under-represented groups. Currently, we especially encourage global majority people who might be interested to apply.
]]>Do you want to help more people to learn to play the piano?
Do you love to figure out what students’ problems are and solve them?
Do you enjoy teaching the same repertoire to students in a range of different ways? We are not looking for teachers to deliver a set curriculum; we are looking for teachers who love to deliver completely tailored lessons for each student and build a long-term relationship with them.
Do you have carefully catalogued different learning templates for different types of students and situations and build up individual relationships with them?
Have you consistently modified, improved, and updated your teaching techniques and explored new ways to help your students over the years?
Do you want to develop your teaching skills and add more improvisation and harmony/chord-based templates? Do you want to empower your students with more creative and holistic-based learning?
We are not just looking for piano teachers who make the difficult challenges of piano interesting and enjoyable; but also have measurable ways to ensure their students are progressing and moving towards their own goals, whatever they may be.
Do you have an entrepreneurial approach, but don’t like all the admin? If you feel exhausted and bogged down by the amount of admin associated with freelance work when you’d rather be spending your time teaching, this could be the place for you. We do the all the marketing, invoicing, chasing up late payments and scheduling (you do still need to do the lesson notes).
We have built a marketing process that we continue to hone. It delivers a regular stream of new students, many of whom stay with us for years. This is why we are advertising for more teachers.
Freelance / self-employed position.
We pay highly competitive rates for online seminars and masterclasses.
Our most successful coaches, who do approx. 4 days a week and retain their students for years) make over £30k per annum self-employed, not including their extra income from online courses.
One-to-one teaching at our Baker Street studios in London.
Online lessons for our international students and online seminars.
This position is flexible, but you need to have availability of 18/20 hours or more initially over 3 days per week. Your schedule can be modified to integrate with your existing commitments and will build up over time. If you can be flexible that gives us more options with students.
On top of individual lessons, you will also have the opportunity to create and record YouTube content, conduct group online seminars and masterclasses (both paid). We pay highly competitive rates for online seminars and masterclasses, starting at £75 per hour. We provide the technology, support and training for this if you would like it.
We pay MU rates for attending student concerts.
You do not need to have a classical background to work with us. Very few of our students are looking for classical teaching.
You need to have good spoken English.
You need to be adaptable and able to do lots of different things – an all-rounder, stylistically and in ability, able to improvise and compose. You need to have a wide knowledge of contemporary music from Jazz, Rock, Pop, Folk, Blues, Punk.
We are piano teachers and pianists (many with a performance background) who are passionate about helping our students and bringing them a wonderful educational and musical experience that will enable them to grow as musicians and students.
Most of our students are adults, many of whom have a wide range of learning styles. Many of them have not had success with traditional methods.
Unlike many other schools, we generally do not focus on conventional exam-based curriculam. We are axing away conventional tedious restrictive methodology and have had considerable success with our methods.
Many of our students have recorded albums, given full length solo recitals and some of our younger students have gone on to study music beyond school. Students have composed their own pieces and recorded them, where before they didn’t use the piano.
We have students who have progressed from complete scratch to playing pieces like Chopin Waltzes in two years. Some of our students are music teachers looking to expand their own skills and their teaching abilities.
We have more than 300 active students with many more who are taking online group courses; most do not take lessons on a weekly basis because they are adults and need a more flexible approach. On average they have 1 – 2 lessons a month. Around 95% of our student base is adult learners at a variety of levels from beginner to intermediate and advanced, many returning to the piano after many years. The school is growing all the time.
30% of our students are international students who learn virtually with us.
We respond to all applicants and provide professional feedback if asked.
Our teachers also tend to stay with us for years, so if you are looking for stability, the opportunity to grow and improve your skills in a community of like-minded people, we’d love you to apply for a position with us at the London Contemporary School of Piano. To start the process, please apply below.
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