Every parent wants the best for their children. A cliché perhaps but the moment my Jenna was placed in my arms I experienced the reality of that cliché. I am quite sure most parents have had those moments. My husband and I resolved to do our best for her. This meant recognizing and respecting her as separate from us, i.e., an individual that is her own person, having her own likes, dislikes, personality traits, ideas, God given talents, and idiosyncrasies and building on these “raw materials.” How? By giving her experiences we believed would be foundational for her to live a life of quality. This includes:

1. first and foremost, faith and character formation;
2. a well - rounded education – not merely one that focuses on earning good grades, but one that cultivates creativity;
3. the ability to process her thoughts, emotions and challenges;
4. a love for her physical well – being; and
5. learning how to learn and make decisions.

Music and art contribute a big part to the aforesaid. Reliable research will attest to it. And because the young are sponges with remarkable ability to absorb and retain, we decided to start the “building” as soon as she was able. It was really a blessing to have stumbled upon SIM’s Kindermusik program, when she was a wee year and half. The activities encompassed creative multi – sensory learning in a social setting and was fun for both parents and children. The teachers clearly loved the young ones and their dedication to keeping to the program whilst acknowledging the individuality in each shined through. Having completed the program Jenna continued with SIM to learning the piano with a teacher whom she was familiar with (as teacher also taught in the Kindermusik program). Teacher in turn, was able to teach Jenna with awareness of how she best learned because of that familiarity. Hence the transition to piano was one that was smooth. We sincerely believe not only theoretically but from our own experience with Jenna that exposure to music and/or musical instruments at a very young age and keeping at it go very far (among other things) to cultivating discipline, good listening skills, good memory and ability to concentrate. These traits and skills have translated and translate to other areas of her life – particularly so, as we observed, when she embarked in learning something new and in the completion of whatever she started.

Today, Jenna is 17 plus years of age, and still a student at SIM, undertaking a diploma course for piano performance. She will soon take her Grade 8 exams for flute. Her results with SIM for all those years have been excellent. Academically she has also done well, with hardly any external guidance or guidance from us (we would not know how to anyway!). We are grateful that God has blessed us with such wonderful dedicated teachers in SIM and that we never had to push her to practice or prepare for exams. She appreciated (and appreciates) the effort put in by her teachers and the potential they saw in her. These provided her much encouragement.

I truly cannot say enough good about her music experience in SIM. I do not write testimonials but this was one, I was happy to oblige to write as the benefits that came out of it have been tremendous and continuing.

Melissa (Parent)