About Sounds Like This
Built for educators.
Backed by neuroscience.
Music changes brains,
And the grown-ups who know how to use it change everything else.
We’re Australian neuromusical educators who teach early childhood educators how to use music to support regulation, connection, communication, and learning.
We’re here for the educators who want their rooms to feel calmer, their children to feel safer, and their teaching to feel more grounded, joyful, and effective.
What we believe
(AND WE’LL Sing IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS)
We believe children learn best when their nervous systems feel safe. We believe that joy is a legitimate teaching strategy.
We believe children deserve adults who understand their brains. And adults deserve tools that work, even when the whole room has lost the plot.
We believe music is one of the most accessible and underused developmental agents we have. And that it can support children in the most fundamental things they can do as humans: Regulate, Connect, Think, and Express.
What we ACTUALLY DO
In practice, it looks like:
On-site Professional Learning Mentorship and Masterclasses for early learning centres
Online learning for educators, leaders, and families
Programs for primary years (because big kids need this too)
Keynote speaking, consultancy, and partnerships across the early years sector
Our work is with the grown-ups whose work supports early education: early learning centres and kindergartens, primary schools, school-readiness and inclusion teams, councils, TAFEs and universities, community organisations, and families.
Why it all matters in the first place
We know children up to about 7 years old are going through the biggest brain changes of their lives. Their malleable noggins are forging new pathways and making connections at a rate they’ll never quite hit again.
After that, growth slows right down. What you nurture now sets the stage for the rest of their lives.
Our music-based PD and masterclasses make the most of that window, because music lights up SO many parts of the brain at once.
We teach educators the tools that encourage rich neural development, so the brains in your care grow as well as they possibly can.
how we work
We bring together neuroscience-informed music education, early childhood pedagogy, and the everyday realities of educators doing the hard yakka with heart, humour, and whatever energy’s left in the tank.
Our approach is:
Hands on
Where possible, we model strategies with your children, in your environment
Evidence-informed
Everything we teach is grounded in current neuroscience and child development research.
Educator first
We honour your style, your strengths, and your context.
Playful
Because learning sinks deeper when it feels good.
Sustainable
We focus on skills that last, not one-off ‘PD highs’.
With a little help from our friends
We’re lifelong learners who keep good company.
We collaborate with and learn from a brilliant circle of specialists:
Madeleine Wright and her paediatric occupational therapy team, Making Waves
Chrissie Davies: child behaviour expert, Chaos to Calm
Dr. Anita Collins: music and brain researcher, Bigger Better Brains
Lisa Andraczke: Early childhood movement specialist
Dr. John Feierabend: music education pedagogue and author
Allison Davies: music therapist, The Brain Care Café
Jo Harris: Play Therapist, and experienced kindergarten teacher
Robyn Papworth: neuro-informed exercise physiologist, Play Move Improve
Emma Reddie: matrescence and career coach, Emma Reddie Connection
Oliver Sacks’s Musicophilia, Anita Collins’s The Music Advantage, and Siegel & Bryson’s The Whole-Brain Child.
Full shelf coming soon.
We’re always reading too. A few favourites:
sounds like this in the wild
We work right across Melbourne - from Bayside to the Mornington Peninsula - and pop up further afield too, running sessions, sharing research, and turning up wherever childhood is happening. You may have seen us at:
Glen Education kindergartens and Hope Early Learning Centres
Currajong School
State Library Victoria’s Children’s Quarter
Victorian Parent’s Council presentations
Frankston City and Mornington Shire events (Party in the Park, the Mayor’s Picnic, Main Street Festival, Children’s Day)
Podcasts including Chaos to Calm and Profit Lovers
Sounds Like This champions inclusive, neuro-affirming spaces where every person is valued, welcomed and respected. Different brains, different needs, different ways of joining in — all genuinely belong here.
Wanna work with us? Let’s talk.
If your work touches childhood, we probably have a lot to talk about. Possibly over coffee. Definitely with neuroscience.