Meet Kiddleydivey Founder and Director, Sally Murphy

I am most importantly, mother to three grown-up children and live in Buckinghamshire with my husband, two dogs, and two cats.  I first started Kiddleydivey when I couldn’t find a suitable music class for my 3-year-old daughter many years ago.

With over 30 years of experience working as a music specialist in psychiatry and for children with special needs, I decided to start my own children’s classes at home, which quickly grew in popularity, forcing a move to local halls and spreading to accommodate classes in different areas.

Sessions for older adults followed shortly afterward with the development of stimulating session plans, designed to engage and invigorate body, minds, and memories.

Before Kiddleydivey, I studied Ballet at Arts Educational College in London for three years, leading to a Diploma in Dance before studying at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London where I was awarded a Diploma in Music Therapy.

I studied the piano, achieving concert standard in piano by the age of 18. I have also run music departments in four junior schools both in London and Buckinghamshire.

As a Montessori teacher, I combined all of this experience to create enjoyable, fun packed, original, entertaining and motivating, music based sessions and programmes for children, for people with special needs and for older adults. Music is so important in the education of children. Many things can be taught and developed through song and musical activity. We can improve speech and co-ordination, teach lots of different concepts, such as parts of the body, colours, numbers, days of the week and the seasons. And the best thing of all is that it is fun!

We know how important music in reaching out to those who are perhaps suffering memory loss, in reconnecting everyone with their memories, in mobilising older people and, in stimulating movement and minds. It is also a very valuable tool to use with people with a variety of special needs as music can bypass damaged parts of the brain and reach other receptive areas that require little or no cognitive or mental processing.

Over four years ago l made the decision to franchise the company and give other enthusiastic people the tools with which to reach children, the older adults and adults with special needs through Kiddleydivey music programmes. The franchises have been a huge success, and I am now enormously proud to have wonderful people in many corners of the UK running their own Kiddleydivey businesses.