“Giving students that inner confidence they can succeed.”

Emma Kent Director of Music at West Buckland School in the UK took her choir, concert and jazz band on tour to the Rhineland this year.

She says her school music tours have an incredible impact on the musical proficiency and quality of her students’ playing, but it is socially where the tour is invaluable:

“The joy of this particular trip is the diversity of the clientele. There is no other school trip that is so inclusive of age and diverse in appeal.

“The soft skills that pupils and staff gain from it are huge and not to be underestimated: confidence building, negotiation, team-work, character development, independence, resilience, relationship building, tolerance and good old fashioned humour.

“Preparing for a tour is a great way to galvanise and focus attention. At school students are pulled in lots of different directions, but to have 4 or 5 days where you can really focus on the music-making not only brings astronomical improvements in their playing and performance levels, but gives young people that inner quiet confidence that they can succeed.

“The Rhineland was magical; beautiful scenery and everyone was very friendly. Every venue we went to rolled out the red carpet for us and was very welcoming. We saw lots of wonderful sights including Cochem Castle where we had an excellent and very charismatic English-speaking tour guide and Port Nigra in Trier. We also took the students to an Aqua park where they could let off steam!”

Find out more about our school music tours to the Rhineland or see all our school music trip destinations.