As I come up to five years of running Boogie Beat Edinburgh, Midlothian and East Lothian, I’ve been thinking a lot about something that has become a much bigger part of my role than I ever anticipated when I first started: building and training a team.
Over those years, I’ve now trained 10 different people to deliver Boogie Beat sessions.
Some have stayed for years. Some have joined us for a particular chapter of their lives before moving on to the next stage of their careers. Some have even left and come back! And one of the things I’m most proud of is the relationships we’ve built along the way.
Within just three months of launching the business, I took on my first class teacher, Karen. She stayed with Boogie Beat for an incredible two and a half years.
Then came Fabio, who worked with me for just over a year while completing his childminder training. I absolutely love that his Boogie Beat story has now come full circle — he attends my classes with the children he looks after as a childminder!
Megan was with us for just under a year before leaving to become a senior in a nursery. And what happened next? Her nursery brought Boogie Beat in to run sessions there.
Zoe worked with us for over a year before moving into family support work — something that had always been part of her longer-term plan once her own children reached high school.
Lindsay was part of the team for over two years while completing her PhD. She now has a full-time role but is still part of our extended Boogie Beat family and supports us with birthday parties.
Then there’s Katie, a former primary school teacher who has now been with us for over two years and brings a huge amount of experience to the team.
Blu worked with us for around a year and a half, took a six-month break…and then came back because she missed it so much!
More recently, Anna has been with us for almost a year, Ellen for around six months, and our newest team member, Matilda, has just started her Boogie Beat journey.
So, what have I learned from training 10 people?
There are absolutely things about Boogie Beat that are non-negotiable.
Our songs matter. The structure of our sessions matters. The way we use Makaton to support communication matters. The stories, music, movement and imagination that make Boogie Beat what it is need to be understood and delivered well.
But there is something else that I have come to believe just as strongly:
I am not looking for clones of me.
Whenever somebody joins my team, I tell them:
“I’m looking for the Boogie Beat version of YOU.”
Because children are possibly the harshest — and most perceptive — critics you will ever meet!
They know when you’re being genuine. They know when you’re uncomfortable. And they absolutely know when you’re pretending to be somebody you’re not.
To do this job well, you genuinely have to enjoy being with children. You have to be prepared to be a little bit silly. You need to use your imagination. You need to connect.
But you don’t need to do those things exactly like I do.
In fact, I don’t want you to.
Bringing your own skills into the room
One of my favourite parts of developing a team has been seeing what happens when people become confident enough with the Boogie Beat framework to start bringing their own skills and personalities into it.
Take Anna.
Anna is a gymnastics coach, and she brings fantastic physical movement into her storytelling. She might move down onto all fours and use her whole body to become a character or demonstrate a movement.
That’s brilliant.
It’s also something you’re unlikely to see me doing! After two babies, my hips and knees would have a few things to say about it!
But that’s exactly the point.
I don’t need Anna to move like me. I want Anna to move like Anna.
Then there’s Blue, who previously performed professionally as a dancer in the West End. She has a completely different understanding of movement and dance and brings wonderful stylistic ideas into her interpretation of our stories and songs.
Again, that’s something uniquely hers.
And our newest team member, Matilda, is a classical musician. You can hear that musical background when she sings. Rather than asking her to change that to sound more like me, I want her to bring it into her sessions. What an amazing experience for our children to be exposed to all these different skills, voices and ways of expressing music.
And that’s why, for me, training isn’t about creating identical class teachers.
It’s about giving somebody a really strong framework and then helping them find themselves within it.
Connection comes before perfection
At the heart of Boogie Beat, we’re looking for genuine communication.
We’re looking for connection.
We’re looking to build meaningful relationships with the babies, children, parents, nursery teams and care-home residents we work with.
And we know that children learn through those relationships.
You can’t build a genuine relationship while pretending to be somebody else.
So, yes, I will teach my team the songs.
I’ll teach them the session structure. We’ll practise stories. We’ll work on timings, resources, Makaton, transitions, managing groups and all the practical elements that make a session work.
I’m also a big believer in training in person and learning on the job. But to support that, I expect team members to learn the songs in their own time. That means that when they’re in front of the children, they can focus on their delivery and engagement rather than trying to remember the words and actions.
Technology is wonderful for this. We can share videos and voice recordings of particular songs so that team members can practise in their own time. They can play them in the car, get them into their heads and become familiar with the rhythm and structure before they’re standing in front of a group.
And the brilliant thing, of course, is that Boogie Beat songs are very catchy. People who are training often say, “Oh yes, my boyfriend, husband or children know all the songs now too because I’ve been playing them!” They just get stuck in your head.
And that’s exactly what we’re looking for with Boogie Beat.
We want it to be memorable.
But gradually, I also need to step backwards.
Because at some point, the person I’m training needs to stop thinking:
“How would Mairi do this?”
and start thinking:
“How would I do this?”
That’s the moment when I think a class teacher really starts to find their feet.
Looking back at the 10 people I’ve had the privilege of training so far, they’ve all brought something different to Boogie Beat.
And I think we’re better because of it.
There will always be a Boogie Beat way.
But within that, there should also be room for personality, experience, creativity, silliness and individuality.
Because ultimately, whether we’re singing, dancing, telling stories or crawling around the floor pretending to be bears, pirates or hedgehogs, the most important thing we’re bringing into that room is ourselves.
And children deserve the genuine version.
Written by Mairi Curle Franchisee Owner of Boogie Beat Edinburgh, Mid and East Lothian