Tom Watkins has very extensive experience and success as a pianist, guitarist and bassist, and more recently conducting and being employed as Musical Director for many high profile theatre groups and operatic societies. At age 18, Tom won The Young Musician of the Year Award for Staffordshire and went on to achieve a degree with honours in music from The Royal Conservatoire.

In his professional life Tom has been a teacher for around 15 years. He has been Head of Music and Director of Performing Arts in 3 big schools across the East Midlands and is currently at The International School in Desa Parkcity – one of the top 5 schools in Malaysia. Tom was appointed Head of Music in one school in the year that it was No1 in the national league tables for progress.

Tom has designed and taught GCSE music, A-level Music, A-level Music Technology, Btec level 2 music and Btec level 3 music throughout his 15 year career, and visiting lead verifiers have noted that what pupils are doing on these courses are “way above and beyond what other pupils in schools are doing nationally.” Tom has been observed by Ofsted inspectors (including HMI inspectors), head teachers and many visiting bodies, and has mostly ‘Outstanding’ grades on file for formal classroom teaching observations. Typically, pupils on these courses achieve higher grades than they do in other subjects in the same schools.

Tom has taught private music lessons on piano, guitar, bass and theory for nearly 25 years. He has taught beginners who have become professional musicians, been offered a music place at Berklee, studied a PhD in music, got music degrees from conservatoires around the UK and have founded their own function bands. Tom is proud to still be friends and fellow musicians with many of his ex-pupils.